A county and its boundaries are a human construct. Sometimes they are based on Earth’s features, like a divide between watersheds or a river, and other times they are based on our imaginary partitions – such as townships or the lines of the graticule. Ultimately, county boundaries are jurisdictional in nature and define the rights, responsibilities, and interests on the land.
Since 1863, when the boundaries of Jefferson County were created by Idaho Territory, to our most recent change in 1903, when we exchanged a small area with Powell County on our western border, Jefferson County’s boundary has changed seven times. It seems to largely be fixed now, so feeling energized and willing, if we were to travel the border of our county in a loop, it would be a 216 mile excursion. Dividing our trip into four legs, let’s start in the northeast corner and travel clockwise, and hopefully it will be worth the time.
Leg one of our journey starts a half mile north of Highway 12, where a single imaginary point touches Jefferson County, Lewis and Clark County, and Broadwater County in the middle of a wheat field. Here we walk south in a straight line where two townships meet, huffing as we ascend the eastern flank of Corral Mountain. Outside of a minor zig or zag, we would walk south for 36 miles through the heart of the nation’s only Wildlife Management Unit. We skim Horsethief Park in the northern portion of the range and may be able to peer into Crow Creek Falls in the southern Elkhorns. Transitioning from timbered high country to the draws of sage and juniper, eventually we bisect the limestone features of Milligan Canyon and hit the Jefferson River, where we soak our blistered feet.
