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I prefer Pacific Time. If my business is out of state, it is to Washington or Oregon. I can't imagine I'm ever going to do much business with the plains states. Its easier to do business while in the same time zone. Offices close at the same time, people are up at the same time. No figuring out what the time is before you call.
I'm a bit surprised that southern idaho isn't on Pacific time. Culturally Idaho is Pacific Northwest, not a plains state.
The daylight saving issue, if they ever stop that, I'd be happy to be on daylight saving year round. But again, only if everyone does it, so times are consistant.
It would be interesting to learn how and why the time zones were decided.
I suspect they were decided before the current state boundaries were set.
The Idaho Territory once encompassed all of what is now Montana, Wyoming, Oregon and Washington in 1865 when Lincoln created it, and at one time, the state was to be named Lincoln. The current boundaries are essentially what was left of a territory that was once 4-5 times larger.
The reason for it's creation was the gold and sliver mines in the north and central areas of the state. Lincoln secured them for the Union, as the Confederacy had claimed Arizona at the war's outbreak, where there was also a lot of gold and silver. Both sides needed bullion desperately to pay for the war.
Arizona declared itself a slave-holding state at the war's outbreak, but the Confederacy could not hold it for their own. There were a short series of pitched battles that settled the matter by force, and Arizona became Union-occupied hostile territory for the rest of the war. The reason Lincoln created the Idaho territory was due in large part to avoid the need to send Federal troops to Idaho.
By declaring it a free territory, the troops were freed to go fight the more important battles elsewhere.
But Fort Boise was built and was garrisoned by a few troops, to act as a peace-keeping force and to stop gold smuggling to the Confederacy.
There were a lot of Confederate deserters who packed up and came here during the war, partly to avoid capture, and partly to make their fortunes. The mining towns of Atlanta, Virginia City, Dixie, and some others were mostly populated by these Southerners. The gold that came out of them financed the U.S. Treasury. Idaho produced more gold than California and Arizona combined, and as much silver as Nevada.
Those mining areas were fought over by the various powers in the surrounding territories as they set their Territorial boundaries after the war ended. Oregon and Montana both became more populated than Idaho, and both wanted the mines. So did Washington as it became populated. When oil and coal were discovered in Wyoming, it too wanted a hunk of Idaho, as did Utah and Nevada.
Idaho was the least populated Territory, and nobody cared very much about all the lands south of Boise, except for the Idahoans who settled it.
Though smaller in number, there was still a lot of powerful and influential people here who did not want their holdings threatened by others as powerful in the other territories. They weren't just the mine owners; Idaho was important to the Union and Northern Pacific railroads too, as the only rail routes through the Rockies are all located here.
Nothing in commerce and migration went from east to west or north to south without crossing through Idaho.
Though the south was largely uninhabitable in the center, due to the Arco desert, by the late 1880s, the south had become as major a livestock and agricultural area as those in the surrounding territories, and those people joined the mining magnates of the north.
The time zones were likely being set in the midst of all this, and were extremely important because of the railroads. The railroads had to have set time standards to run on time, and they, too, may have played a part in the setting of the zones. Everything in all of them came in and went on by rail.
By 1990, the year Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming were all admitted into the union as states, the boundaries had been set, but even then, the state capital had not been settled. It was first Blackfoot, then Lewiston, before Boise was chosen, and Boise was chosen mostly because it had the only Army garrison in the state.
This too, may have played a part in the time zones. The capital would have been needed to be in the zone where the entire state, or most of it, was located, as all state laws take effect on a given date and time.
For sure, trying to get them changed would be a battle. That's the one thing that's always gone on here. Everything was fought over, and re-fought, and re-fought again, ever since 1865.
There has always been some fight happening here over stuff like this all my life, and it hasn't stopped yet. I don't think it ever will.
Last edited by banjomike; 03-24-2018 at 12:04 PM..
Boise who? NID is so disconnected from southern Idaho, changing the time to be like them would go nowhere. And all this talk of potential growth? Have you read local blogs? No one is begging for more of that! I think NID is fine being the forgotten part of the state...
This may be a crazy, unfounded theory, but I don’t hear of NID businesses doing business with Boise. The only time I hear of people going to Boise is from my LDS friends. Many of them seem to have family in the southern part of the state and dread the drive down through Oregon. Commerce comes and goes to Spokane.
Boise who? NID is so disconnected from southern Idaho, changing the time to be like them would go nowhere. And all this talk of potential growth? Have you read local blogs? No one is begging for more of that! I think NID is fine being the forgotten part of the state...
This may be a crazy, unfounded theory, but I don’t hear of NID businesses doing business with Boise. The only time I hear of people going to Boise is from my LDS friends. Many of them seem to have family in the southern part of the state and dread the drive down through Oregon. Commerce comes and goes to Spokane.
LOL.
Businesses in Boise do business around the state.
And potential growth? Do you get out much? Coeur d'Alene was just ranked as one of the top 10 fastest growing metros in the nation, as well as the Boise Metro.
And potential growth? Do you get out much? Coeur d'Alene was just ranked as one of the top 10 fastest growing metros in the nation, as well as the Boise Metro.
LOL!
He didn't say there wasn't growth, potential or otherwise.
What he said is that people in the CdA area aren't looking for more growth.
Of sure, I'd guess there are some that are, but many think the CdA metro area is already crowded enough.
Ask local businesses whether they do more business with Boise or Spokane....
And maybe my post wasn’t clear. I didn’t state the area wasn’t experiencing growth, it obviously is! I was trying to respond to other posts that said if we would connect up with Boise we could have more growth. The local population is not looking to encourage more growth imo.
He didn't say there wasn't growth, potential or otherwise.
What he said is that people in the CdA area aren't looking for more growth.
Of sure, I'd guess there are some that are, but many think the CdA metro area is already crowded enough.
Dave
LOL!
I responded to how I understood the context of the post I replied to. The reply below takes care of my
misinterpretation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dmmhc
Ask local businesses whether they do more business with Boise or Spokane....
And maybe my post wasn’t clear. I didn’t state the area wasn’t experiencing growth, it obviously is! I was trying to respond to other posts that said if we would connect up with Boise we could have more growth. The local population is not looking to encourage more growth imo.
Spokane is obvious because of the proximity. But to assume that businesses in North Idaho do not "do business" with the rest of the state is short sighted.
An example as far as food products are concerned, is I can buy coffee beans roasted in Coeur d'Alene at a local market here in Boise. I can buy craft beer brewed in Wallace or Ponderay right here in Boise.
There are shops in downtown Boise that only sell items made in Idaho and I see products on their shelves from artists and "businesses" from North Idaho.
In Boise, on the Summer solstice, they have about 35 minutes less of sun, and because of where Boise falls in the time zone, they can play ball from about 4:40 in the morning until almost 11:00 at night!
This is one of the reasons why summer in Boise is so awesome. The summer nights are beautiful and the sunsets are incredible.
Northern Idaho should NOT be changed to Mountain time. Boise and the western half of southern Idaho should be on Pacific time.
I suspect Boise went into Mtn time with it's economic connections to Salt Lake being greater than Oregon. Looking at a map, Boise is further west than Las Vegas, but LV is in the Pacific Time Zone (economic connections to LA?) while Boise is in the Mtn Zone. Today it would make more sense to put Boise into the Pacific time zone just from a longitude standpoint.
Maritime timekeeping is ideal; it is all based on only one longitude, the Greenwitch Meridian. This was set way back in the past when only a very good clock could inform a ship's navigator of the ship's longitudinal location.
To make that work, the clock had to be set at only one time, wherever it happened to be anywhere in the world. Greenwitch Mean Time is still the navigtional standard time for all ships, even though longitude is now determined by satellite and computers. In a last-ditch situation, any navigator with an accurate wristwatch can calculate the ship's position to this day.
Greenwitch, the location of an observatory in England, became the standard over 300 years ago due to two factors: a clock that could keep accurate time at sea was finally invented, and England was the greatest sea power on Earth, so it really needed to know where her ships were at sea.
The stars give latitude, but the sun and time of day give longitude. One degree of difference can put a ship onto the rocks of a coast, or can cause a ship to miss an island. At sea, the horizon always looks just the same. There are no landmarks.
On land, the time zones were not as critically important to life, except for some transportation. The railroads ran by GMT for a very long time, as did air travel and navigation on the Great Lakes.
But the time zones were always adjusted to their most westward positions possible to allow more work to be done in the daylight hours.
It was the work that determined most of a time zone, not the commerce and location of the major cities, except in one region of the United States- the mountain time zone. It alone was adjusted toward the most eastward side, not the westward side.
This was due to commerce and the difficulty of travel in the Rocky Mountains. Over 100 years ago when the time zone was created, all commerce lay eastward, and the Mountain Time zone was a supplier of raw materials, not industry, where all the biggest money is made.
Time was not standardized until the 20th century. The westward slide in the zones was eventually recognized world-wide, and the Mountain Time is the only contrary oddity in the North American continent west of the Mississippi. The northern Atlantic seaboard states are also skewed to the east and the skew continues up into Canada, while the southern seaboard states are skewed to the west.
While the proximity to larger cities (or larger industrial areas) probably did determine some of the time zone boundaries 100 years ago, I doubt our 2-zone problems will ever be fixed. The importance of time to computers and everything that's done with them will prevent any changes for a very long time to come.
But who knows? Standardized time world-wide is still pretty new. The last country to adopt time zones was Nepal, in 1987.
The United States was one of the first countries to adopt standardized time zones. The zones have shifted several times over the years due to commerce; there were several cities in the mid-west that had 2 noons for a day in 1883 when there was a major shift in the zones.
But Idaho's little pocket of Pacific Standard Time has existed since 1913 or earlier, to accommodate the railroads. So for as long as the railroads still haul freight through the panhandle, I don't think it's likely to change until they stop carrying freight. It's the most eastward bulge in the Pacific zone, just a little wart on otherwise pretty straight lines.
And in comparison, it really doesn't affect very many people. If the population in NID ever reaches a million or more, it could possibly be changed then.But by then, the residents might not want the change.
I think it makes more sense to follow Idaho's western boundary, but I have no say in the matter, and even then, that boundary is not a straight line at all. It follows the Snake River, which bulges west into Oregon, then bulges back east intruding the other direction into Idaho. So the citizens of Oregon would have to agree to a change, too.
People who suggest Boise needs to change time zones have no appreciation for one of the most defining characteristics of Boise - the late spring/summer sunsets.
For the majority of people who work 9-5, the ability to have 4-5 hours of sunlight after work is perhaps the most important factor in having a quality of life. Why anyone would want to change that, I don't know.
A bit of history: Mike Moyle tried to change it a few years ago. Wanted Idaho to be like Arizona and stay on standard time year round, ignoring the stark difference in latitude. People got so irate Moyle changed his proposal midstream to wanting to stay on daylight savings time year round. Then people pointed out that half of the year Idaho would be in Central Time Zone, the same as Birmingham, Alabama. That makes no sense either.
Best keep things are they are. Its really not that difficult to change the clocks back and forth twice a year. I mean, come on....
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Makes more sense
