Featuring: Owyhee County IDGenWeb Project
Owyhee County was the first county created in 1863 when the first territorial legislature was created. It was named for its river, mountains and mining area by Hawaiian fur trappers in 1819-1820. Although, Hawaii and Owyhee are different in spelling, its the same word. Gold was discovered in 1863 on Jordan Creek. Millions of dollars in gold and silver has been taken from this region until it decipated in the early 1900s. The original county seat was Silver City, Idaho, until 1934, then Murphy, Idaho became the new county seat. Some of the present-day towns and communities are Bruneau, Givens Hot Springs, Grand View, Homedale, Marsing, Murphy, Riddle, Silver City, and Dickshooter.
The Owyhee County IDGenWeb Project (http://owyhee.idgenweb.org/
) features cemetery, family history, history and local photos indexes, as well as other Idahoan links to benefit with your research. One of the feature story is about the history of Bruneau -- "... first settlers came to the Bruneau Valley in the 1860s because of the availability of water and the hot springs in the upper part of the valley. The Bruneau Valley provides fertile soil for farming and access to the large rangelands nearby, which provide grazing for livestock. In the 1860s and 1870s, cattle drives brought large herds from California and Texas. Many of the people who came with those herds stayed to establish homes in the area. ..." (To read more ... http://owyhee.idgenweb.org/hstry-place-bruneau.html
This county is up for adoption to anyone with lots of Owyhee County resources to add to the website for its patrons. Also, have some basic knowledge of how to create a webpage. But, it doesn’t mean there’s someone on our IDGenWeb Team that can help out from time to time. If you think you might be interested, read through the IDGenWeb Volunteer page (http://idgenweb.org/volunteers.html
) and contact the State Coordinator (email@example.com
) for further information and/or instruction.
We hope you can join us on our IDGenWeb Team. Thank you for your time.
Matt Friend, Vikki Gray & Sharon McConnel
State Coordinator & Assistant State Coordinators