Idaho, after small Mormon settlements of farmers, owed most of its early population to its mines. During the Civil War it grew remarkably, but the fact that it could be reached more easily from the West than from the East, due to access by the Columbia River, made its settlement somewhat anomalous in American history, for it was settled largely by Westerners moving east from Oregon, Washington, and northern California.
In Idaho the development of Mormon colonies has given Utah a strong influence in the State. Apart from this, its population is made up nowadays more from the Mississippi Valley than from the mountain and Pacific Coast States. It is only three-fourths native, but most of the remainder is Nordic, British and Scandinavians both having sought its opportunities. A territory in 1863 and a State in 1890, Idaho now has a population of nearly half a million.
Montana, in the winter of 1862 and 1863 had a total population of 670 inhabitants of whom The Chronicle complacently says: "Fifty-nine were evidently respectable women." Like Idaho, it attracted an element of Southern men escaping from the draft into the Confederate Army, but from then on a large part of its population was from the Northern States. Its growth of population was closely linked up with the fortunes of the mining industry.
Territorial status was given Montana at the time of the great gold discoveries in 1864, and the character of its population fluctuated a good deal, both as to quantity and quality, between that date and 1889 when it was admitted to Statehood. It has now more than half a million inhabitants, nearly half of whom are of foreign stock and largely Roman Catholics. Most of the natives are from the Central States; most of the foreigners are Irish, Germans, or Canadians, though Montana has also attracted more than 50,000 Scandinavians.
Utah's population is now about the size of that of Montana, and but slightly more native in character (three-fifths). These natives are to a large extent born in the State, the descendants of the Mormon pioneers. The "Gentiles" are of widely scattered origin. The foreign stock is mostly English or Scandinavian, the Mormon missionaries having worked diligently in those kingdoms. Utah, therefore, represents a Nordic population, and one with a high birthrate, whence it is evidently destined to continue spreading steadily in the Great Basin.
Nevada sprang almost full grown from the desert, as Venus did from the waves. It scarcely existed, though on the maps as a transmontane part of California, until the gold rush of 1849 brought settlements into existence to take care of the travellers. Then it was attached administratively to Utah, which was also inconveniently distant. The discovery of silver in the fabulously rich Comstock Lode (1859) led to the establishment of Virginia City, and to the inrush of a torrent of miners, particularly from California, where the gold deposits were becoming exhausted.
In 1861 Nevada was established as a separate territory, and Lincoln's administration pushed it through to Statehood in 1864 to get the advantage of two more friendly senators. With the exhausting of the silver deposits in a quarter of a century, Nevada had a severe decline, many of her inhabitants moving away. There was another mining boom in the first ten or fifteen years of this century, but the State has never made a steady and substantial growth, and the 1930 census credited it with no more than 91,058 inhabitants. Not much more than half of these were of the native stock. The foreigners were a scattered lot, with an unexpectedly large Italian contingent.
Arizona was cut loose from New Mexico in 1863, and, after the Civil War, became a typical Western mining community, with a fluctuating frontier population. A district might be active one year and a few years later abandoned.
The Mormons made some of the early settlements in the State and still form a significant part of its population. Like Colorado, Arizona has more than its share of Mexicans, while some of the other Western States, Utah and Nevada for instance, have only negligible numbers of them. The presence of more than 100,000 Mexicans in 1930 gave Arizona, with less than half a million inhabitants all told, a bad position as to its proportion of native stock. If one takes account only of the Whites, 80 per cent are natives of native parentage, the others mostly British or German, with again a surprisingly large Canadian contingent, considering how far removed the two regions are. The American population is of notably cosmopolitan origin, people having gone there from every State in the Union, in connection with mining, or for reasons of health. But Texas is by far the largest single contributor, with California a poor second.
New Mexico stands in the anomalous position of having an almost unparalleled percentage of its population born not merely in the United States, but within its own borders; and yet of having an unparalleled proportion of its population speaking an alien language. An official interpreter is still required in its State legislature, so that the local statesmen who boast of their Americanism but cannot speak English, can make their views known to the Americans. Since the "Spanish-Americans" are classified by the census as white, three-fourths of the population are listed as native white of native parentage. There were also, in 1930, about 60,000 Mexicans born south of the line, hence aliens. The other residents of foreign stock are scattering, with no one nationality greatly predominating.