UTAH.--It is well known that buffaloes, though in very small numbers,
once inhabited northeastern Utah, and that a few were killed by the
Mormon settlers prior to 1840 in the vicinity of Great Salt Lake. In the
museum at Salt Lake City I was shown a very ancient mounted head of a
buffalo bull which was said to have been killed in the Salt Lake Valley.
It is doubtful that such was really fact. There is no evidence that the
bison ever inhabited the southwestern half of Utah, and, considering the
general sterility of the Territory as a whole previous to its
development by irrigation, it is surprising that any buffalo in his
senses would ever set foot in it at all.

IDAHO.--The former range of the bison probably embraced the whole of
Idaho. Fremont states that in the spring of 1824 "the buffalo were
spread in immense numbers over the Green River and Bear River Valleys,
and through all the country lying between the Colorado, or Green River
of the Gulf of California, and Lewis' Fork of the Columbia River, the
meridian of Fort Hall then forming the western limit of their range."
[In J. K. Townsend's "Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky
Mountains," in 1834, he records the occurrence of herds near the Mellade
and Boise and Salmon Rivers, ten days' journey--200 miles--west of Fort
Hall.] The buffalo then remained for many years in that country, and
frequently moved down the valley of the Columbia, on both sides of the
river, as far as the Fishing Falls. Below this point they never
descended in any numbers. About 1834 or 1835 they began to diminish very
rapidly, and continued to decrease until 1838 or 1840, when, with the
country we have just described, they entirely abandoned all the waters
of the Pacific north of Lewis's Fork of the Columbia [now called Snake]
River. At that time the Flathead Indians were in the habit of finding
their buffalo on the heads of Salmon River and other streams of the
Columbia.