The History of Idaho, The Gem of the Mountain, by James H. Hawley, Volume I, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1920:

CANYON COUNTY

"On March 7, 1891, Governor Willey approved an act authorizing the county commissioners of Ada County to submit to the voters in the western part of the county the question of cutting off that portion of Ada County and erecting therein the County of Canyon. The question was accordingly submitted at the general election in 1892 and a majority of the votes were in favor of the new county.

"As originally established, Canyon County included the present counties of Canyon and Payette and that part of Gem County lying south of the southern border of Washington County. Gem County was cut off in 1915 and Payette in 1917, reducing Canyon to its present dimensions. It is bounded on the north by Payette and Gem counties; on the east by Ada County; on the south by the Snake River, which separates it from Owyhee County; and on the west by the Snake River which here separates Idaho from Oregon. The county derives its name from the Snake River Canyon.

"One of the first settlers in this county was Garner Miner, a native of New Haven, Conn., who came to Idaho in 1861, nearly two years before the organization of the territory. For awhile he followed mining at Florence and in the Illinois Gulch of the Boise Basin, where he took out about a thousand dollars a week, finally selling his claim for a good price. He then went to the lower Payette Valley and purchased 300 acres of Government land. which he developed into a fine farm and lived there until 1892, when he retired and spent the remaining years of his life in the City of Caldwell, the county seat of Canyon County from its organization.

"Canyon is one of the best agricultural counties in Idaho, the average altitude being only about two thousand feet above sea level and the soil is of exceptional fertility. An item in one of the Caldwell newspapers of August 24, 1918, says: 'Livestock, grain, potatoes and hay to the amount of 889 carloads and aggregating $1,358,000 in valuation have been shipped out to the markets from the tributary country during the past six months. Shipments of the remaining six months of the year will be vastly larger, since more grain, potatoes and live stock will be shipped out than during the first six months of the year.'

"Caldwell and Nampa are both cities of considerable size. The main line of the Oregon Short Line Railroad passes through those two cities. At Nampa branches leave the main line for Boise, Lakeport and Murphy, and the Wilder branch leaves the main line at Caldwell. Middleton and Notus are the most important villages. Minor railway stations are Bowmont, Greenleaf, Melba, Tendavis and Wilder.

"In 1910, before Gem and Payette counties were cut off, the population was 25,323, Canyon then being the second county of the state in the number of inhabitants. In 1918 it stood sixth in the valuation of property, its assessment for that year being $18,420,120."




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