It goes like this... but I am sure you know better-
Mormon pioneers, led by Charles C. Rich, founded Paris in southeast Idaho on Sept. 26, 1863. Franklin, settled by Mormons three years earlier 25 miles to the southwest, was Idaho's first community.
Hatzenbuehler argues that Idaho likely would have never achieved statehood without these Mormon settlements, which were followed by large-scale Mormon migrations in the 1870s and then the railroad.
He said such settlement would have eventually reached what is now Idaho. However, had it been delayed in the southeastern part of the state by 10 or 20 years, there would have been a much less compelling reason for statehood.
Instead, Hatzenbuehler said the territory would have been divided up among its neighbors instead of becoming the state of Idaho on July 3, 1890.
"It certainly could have happened that way, 49 states," he said.
It didn't happen, though, and today the Mormon church is the largest religious denomination in the state with 366,900 members. Idaho ranks third in the U.S. for total LDS membership per state population after Utah and California; but second to Utah as to proportion of state population who are LDS church members, said church spokesman Coke Newell. (The Catholic Church is the second largest religious denomination in Idaho with about 120,000 members.)
_________________________
Clearwater/Salmon Super Freak