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Humans may have been present in the Idaho area as long as 14,500 years ago. Excavations at Wilson Butte Cave near Twin Falls in 1959 revealed evidence of human activity, including arrowheads, that rank among the oldest dated artifacts in North America. Native American tribes predominant in the area included the Nez Perce in the north and the Northern and Western Shoshone in the south. By contrast, Idaho was the last of the 50 states explored by people of European descent. The Lewis and Clark expedition entered present-day Idaho on August 12, 1805, at the Lemhi Pass. The first expedition to enter southern Idaho is believed to be a group led by Wilson Price Hunt, which navigated the Snake River while attempting to blaze an all-water trail westward from St. Louis, Missouri, to Astoria, Oregon, in 1811 and 1812. At that time, approximately 8,000 Native Americans lived in the region. Fur trading and missionary work attracted the first settlers to the region. In 1809, Kullyspell House, the first white-owned establishment and first trading post in Idaho, was constructed. In 1836, Henry H. Spalding established a mission near Lapwai, where he printed the Northwest's first book, established Idaho's first school, developed its first irrigation system, and grew the state's first potatoes. Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding were the first white women to enter present-day Idaho. The Cataldo Mission, the oldest standing building in Idaho, was contructed at Cataldo by the Coeur d'Alene (tribe) and Catholic missionaries between 1848 and 1853. During this time, the Idaho region was part of an unorganized territory known as Oregon Country, claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. The United States gained undisputed jurisdiction over the region in the Oregon Treaty of 1846. The original boundaries of Oregon Territory in 1848 included all three of the present-day Pacific Northwest states and extended eastward to the Continential Divide. In 1853, areas north of the 46th Parallel became Washington Territory, splitting what is now Idaho in two. The future state was reunited in 1859 after Oregon became a state and the boundaries of Washington Territory were redrawn. While thousands passed through Idaho on the Oregon Trail and during the California gold rush of 1849, few people settled there. The first organized town in Idaho was Franklin, settled in April 1860 by Mormon pioneers who believed they were in Utah Territory (a later survey determined they had in fact crossed the border) [1]. Later that year, the first of several gold rushes in Idaho began at Pierce in present-day Clearwater County. By 1862, settlements in both the north and south had formed around the mining boom. On March 4, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act creating Idaho Territory from portions of Washington Territory and Dakota Territory with its capital at Lewiston. The original Idaho Territory included most of the areas that later became the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and had a population of under 17,000. Idaho Territory assumed the boundaries of the modern state in 1868.
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