Adjacent Counties
and States
To visit counties adjacent to Clark County please click on the links below:
Butte, Fremont, Jefferson and Lemhi in Idaho
Beaverhead in Montana
Butte
Butte was established in 1917, and the county seat and largest city is Arco. Two primary rivers, the Little Lost River and Big Lost River got their names because they disappear from the surface to flow underground into the Snake River Plain aquifer in Butte County. Butte received its name as a result of the volcanic buttes throughout the desert plains in the county. The largest butte is Big Southern Butte which rises 2500 feet above the desert floor. It was a primary landmark for the early pioneers traversing this part of Idaho. Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve can be found in the southwestern portion of the county.
Fremont
Fremont county is at the top of the Upper Snake River Valley in southeast Idaho. Much of the county is either forest or sagebrush desert. The county seat is St. Anthony. Other communities are Ashton, Box Canyon, Chester, Drummond, Egin, France, Grainville, Heman, Lake, Island Park, Lamont, Last Chance, Mack's Inn, Marysville, Newdale, Parker, Pyke, Squirrel, Teton, Twin Groves, Warm River, and Wilford.
Scenic attractions include the Upper and Lower Mesa Falls, the St. Anthony Sand Dunes, Big Springs, Henry's Fork of the Snake River, and the Island Park Reservoir. The southwest border of Yellowstone National Park is inside Fremont county. The continental divide ends the county on the north side. It has 1,894 square miles.
It was established March 4, 1893, from Bingham county. It was named for John C. Fremont, the explorer, who passed through the area in 1843.
Jefferson
The county was established February 18, 1913 with the county seat as Rigby, Idaho. The county was named for Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. The first settlers were Mormons, who shortly after their arrival began constructing irrigation systems throughout the area. The television was invented in the city of Rigby by Philo T. Farnsworth.
Lemhi
The first white men to come to the Lemhi Valley were the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. On Aug 12, 1805, Captain Meriwether Lewis and three companions crossed the Continental Divide and reached the headwaters of a creek that came to be known as Agency Creek, flowing toward the Columbia River Basin. The explorers were seeking a contact with the Shoshone Indians in order to obtain horses to enable the Expedition to cross the mountains. It was a well-known fact that the Shoshone Indians had taken horses from the Spaniards in earlier times. Obtaining the necessary horses was a singular and difficult problem.
Five Montana prospectors, B.F. Sharkey, Elijah Mulley, William Smith, Ward Girton and Joseph Rapp, discovered rich gold deposits at a place about 14 miles west of Salmon, which became "Leesburg" on July 16, 1866. This discovery of gold on the creek which the Indians called Napias Creek, the word napias meaning gold or money, started a gold rush that led to a mining town at Leesburg of 3000 people, the creation of Salmon City in 1867 and the organization of Lemhi County in 1869.
Beaverhead, Montana
Beaverhead County, in the Southwestern corner of the state, was organized as one of the original territorial counties on February 2, 1865. It was named for the rock which Sacajawea pointed out to Lewis and Clark explaining that her people had called it that because it resembled a beaver's head [see photo above]. It was one of the smallest of the original counties, but is now the largest. Beaverhead County maintained its original area throughout all the county dividing and the only change in its borders was made by an annexation of a part of Madison County in 1911. It contains Montana's oldest town, Bannack City, where a post office was established in November 1863. Dillon is the county seat.
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