Famous Citizens:

Gutzon Borglum
Born near Bear Lake, Idaho, the son of Danish immigrants, Gutzon may have learned his love of sculpting from his father who was a woodcutter. Borglum is best known for his work designing and working on the massive sculptures of Mount Rushmore, although he also did other pieces including a sculpture of the apostles for the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and a head of Abraham Lincoln that is now displayed in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington D.C. Although Borglum worked for 14 years on Mount Rushmore, he died before it was completed. The work was finished by his son, Lincoln, seven months later.

 

 

Ezra Pound
Born in Hailey, Idaho, Pound earned a degree from Hamilton College and then traveled abroad where he became interested in Japanese and Chinese poetry. He is considered to be a leader in the 20th century poetry, particularly the movement called “imagism,” which stressed economy of language and ignored poetic conventions like rhyme and meter. He also became involved in Fascist politics in the 1920s, and was eventually arrested for treason against the United States and declared mentally ill. He finally won release from the hospital and lived the remainder of his life in Italy.

 

 

Sacagawea
Born in Eastern Idaho, Sacagawea was the daughter of a Shoshone chief, but was kidnapped by the Hidatsa tribe when she was about 10 years old. From there, she was purchased by a French Canadian trapper who made her his wife. The explorers Lewis and Clark hired the trapper, named Toussaint Charbonneau, as a guide and interpreter on their expedition in 1804. While on the expedition, Sacagawea gave birth to her first child and carried the child on a cradleboard throughout their travels. During the trip, Sacagawea was asked to serve as an interpreter for a group of Shoshone Indians, and discovered that the leader of the group was her older brother, now the chief. When the expedition came to an end, Charbonneau’s services were no longer required, and no one really knows what happened to Sacagawea. Some say she died in an epidemic in 1812, and others believe she eventually rejoined the Shoshone and died there in 1884. Her image now appears on the U.S. one dollar coin.

 

 

Picabo Street
Born in Triumph, Idaho, this two-time Olympic medalist skier with the unconventional name came from an unconventional family. In fact, her parents believed that a child should be able to choose her own name, so for the first two years of her life, they called her “Little Girl.” It was only when her parents tried to get a passport for her to travel to Mexico when she was two that US officials insisted that they give her a “real name.” They chose “Picabo” after a village in Idaho (the word means “Shining Water” in a Native American language), but told Picabo she could change her name if she wanted to… she decided to keep it. When Picabo was 16, she won the National Junior Alpine Ski Championship and in 1994, she won a silver medal in downhill skiing at the Winter Olympics in Norway. Four years later, she won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, just months after a severe knee injury in a ski accident.