ID HCR041

Idaho was admitted to the United States on July 3, 1890, and the First Legislature created a competition with a $100 prize for the best design of a state great seal.

Emma Edwards Green, an art school graduate who came to Idaho from New York, submitted the winning design which the legislature unanimously accepted and officially adopted on March 14, 1891.

Idaho's Great Seal is the only state seal in the United States designed by a woman, featuring a woman symbolizing justice and liberty alongside a male miner representing Idaho's mining industry.

The seal depicts Idaho's key industries and resources including timber (large trees), agriculture (farmer, grain, horn of plenty), wildlife (bull elk head), and the Snake River running through mountains.

Idaho became the fourth state to guarantee women's right to vote by amending its Constitution in 1896, 24 years before the Nineteenth Amendment granted that right nationally.