Editing Clearwater County, Idaho (section)

==History==
The Clearwater River and [[Lolo Pass (Idaho)|Lolo Pass]], in the southeast corner of the county, were made famous by the exploration of [[Lewis and Clark]] in the early 19th century. Following an arduous trek through the Bitterroot Mountains, suffering through a mid-September snowstorm and near starvation, the [[Corps of Discovery]] expedition camped with the [[Nez Perce tribe]] on the [[Weippe Prairie]] outside of present-day [[Weippe, Idaho|Weippe]] in 1805. With the assistance of the Nez Perce, the expedition recuperated and constructed burned-out canoes at Canoe Camp in October 1805 and then paddled down the Clearwater, [[Snake River|Snake]], and [[Columbia River|Columbia]] rivers and met the [[Pacific Ocean]] a month later at present-day [[Astoria, Oregon|Astoria]], [[Oregon]].

Elias D. Pierce and Wilbur F. Bassett made the first discovery of [[gold]] in Idaho, on Orofino Creek (Canal Gulch) in 1860, {{convert|1|mi|km|0}} north of present-day [[Pierce, Idaho|Pierce]].

Until 1904, Clearwater County was part of [[Shoshone County, Idaho|Shoshone County]] to the north. It was annexed by [[Nez Perce County, Idaho|Nez Perce County]] for several years and then was established as a new county in 1911.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Clearwater County, Idaho{{!}}History |url=http://www.clearwatercounty.org/visitors/history/index.html |access-date=April 4, 2018 |website=www.clearwatercounty.org |language=en}}</ref> The original county seat of Shoshone County was [[Pierce, Idaho|Pierce]], in today's Clearwater County. It was the first gold rush area of present-day Idaho (then [[Washington Territory]]) in 1860 and was made the county seat of a vast Shoshone County in 1861, two years prior to the establishment of the Idaho Territory. When the [[Silver Valley, Idaho|Silver Valley]] population rose dramatically in the 1880s, the seat was moved to [[Murray, Idaho|Murray]] in 1884 (and to [[Wallace, Idaho|Wallace]] in 1898) to better serve the majority of the county's population. The population of the southern area increased with homesteading in the [[Weippe, Idaho|Weippe]] area in the late 1890s. The vast distance and time required for travel to Wallace from the [[Clearwater River (Idaho)|Clearwater River]] area prompted the move of the southern portion to Nez Perce County.