Item Detail
-
11546
-
2
-
0
-
English
-
A Historical Geography of Agriculture in the Upper Snake River Valley, Idaho
-
University of Colorado
-
Ph.D. diss.
-
"The migration of Mormons to Utah by 1880 exceeded the capacity of the land to support continued population growth. The Mormons began to look elsewhere for land to absorb their excess numbers. Mormons working on the Utah and Northern Railroad discovered the Upper Snake River Valley of Idaho where there was an abundance of land and water. Within a short time migration from Utah to Idaho was underway and by 1890 most of the farmland was claimed. Many of the early settlers of the Upper Snake River Valley were from the Cache Valley area of Northern Utah. Non-Mormon settlers from throughout the United States supplemented the Mormon population. Because of the predominance of Mormon settlers from Cache Valley it was presumed that the cultural/agricultural practices would be similar in the two valleys. The study was designed to investigate the degree of similarity and to assess the influence of both Mormons and non-Mormons in creating the cultural/agricultural landscape of the two valleys. The development of a Model of Landscape Evolution led to several significant conclusions: (A) Variances in the physical environment, particularly a shorter growing season in the Upper Valley, affected crop choices and farm structure. (B) In the period between settlement of Cache Valley and the Upper Valley the railroad affected crop choices by opening a wider marketplace. (C) The Homestead Law, permitted Mormon farmers who had previously been content to settle in villages and farm small tracts of land nearby, to claim and live on a quarter section of land. This resulted in larger dispersed farms in the Upper Valley. (D) When comparing the two valleys, the most significant changes in the landscape are traceable to the coalescing of physical and cultural factors. Of particular importance were the non-Mormon communities which are quite different from the "typical" Mormon Village. This study, utilizing the historical geographical method, presents agricultural and geographical data for each of the study areas in a single volume. Heretofore, a comprehensive geography of these areas was not available, nor was it clearly understood. The Model of Landscape Evolution will help in evaluating development of similar regions." [Author's abstract]