Obama’s visit will keep Idaho’s streak of presidential appearances alive

Debate often swirls around presidential visits to Idaho. This time it went viral.

Andy Brunelle, a former aide to Idaho Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus and who now works for the U.S. Forest Service, has been gathering history of Idaho presidential visits. He posted some of that history on a Facebook page dedicated to Boise and Treasure Valley history after he learned last weekend about President Obama’s upcoming visit.

“It generated so many comments, negative and positive about President Obama, the page administrator had to just take it down,” Brunelle said.

As a candidate, Obama spoke before a crowd of 15,000 people in and around Taco Bell Arena in February 2008, the weekend before Super Tuesday. He was introduced warmly by Andrus, and the huge response was reported widely as proof that Obama had support in red states. President Obama visited Yellowstone with his family in 2010 but did not get to Idaho.

President Benjamin Harrison was the first to visit Idaho, planting an oak next to the Capitol in 1891 when he visited a year after statehood. Others have come to campaign, to comfort flood victims and support firefighters.

Presidents have visited Idaho to fish, float, tour and dedicate a nuclear reactor. One president, perhaps, came repeatedly to visit his mistress.

The last was President George W. Bush, who came in 2005 to vacation with his parents and then-Gov. Dirk Kempthorne at Tamarack Resort, where he mountain biked and boated. He gave a speech to military families who crushed into the Idaho Center and erupted in standing cheers 17 times during the 43-minute speech.

His anti-terrorism theme still resonates today.

“This is a different kind of war,” Bush said in August 2005. “In a free society, it is impossible to protect against every possible threat. And so the only way to defend our citizens where we live is to go after the terrorists where they live.”

Since President Lyndon Johnson came in 1964, every modern president has visited the state at least once while in office. Since Idaho became a state, only two presidents appear to have never visited - William McKinley and Calvin Coolidge.

Presidents John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Herbert Hoover were Idaho visitors prior to their presidency, but were not here during their terms. Grover Cleveland also visited Idaho, sources say, but there are no official records.

PRESIDENTIAL PLANTERS

Harrison’s 1891 tree-planting visit led Boise leaders to change the name of 17th Street to Harrison Boulevard.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt also planted a tree, a rock sugar maple near Harrison’s oak at the Capitol. In Pocatello, 50 mounted Indians from Fort Hall greeted Roosevelt with a series of war whoops.

In 1911, President William Howard Taft planted a buckeye next to Roosevelt’s maple to honor his home state, Ohio. After placing the tree in the ground, the rotund president said, “I guess I’ve earned my dinner now.”

In 1919, Woodrow Wilson traveled through - but did not stop in - North Idaho on his tour to promote the League of Nations. Idaho Sen. William Borah was the League’s leading opponent, which might have accounted for Wilson skipping Idaho. On that same trip, Wilson fell ill in Pueblo, Colo., and never recovered.

In June 1923, Warren G. Harding was on an extended Western trip when his train stopped in Pocatello, Idaho Falls and Boise. Later on the same trip, Harding died in Alaska.

In 1926, Herbert Hoover visited Caldwell as Commerce secretary to celebrate Egg Day. A photographer caught him sleeping during a speech by Borah.

ROOSEVELT IN IDAHO

Franklin Roosevelt did a campaign swing through Idaho in 1932, a year Idaho voted Democratic. Roosevelt returned in 1937 with his wife, Eleanor, and gave a speech at the Capitol.

Brunelle, who lives in Boise’s East End, said Roosevelt got a good taste of urban and rural Idaho.

“He toured the city by car coming out to the East End and going by the Natatorium and visiting every school in the city at the time,” Brunelle said. “After his speech in Downtown Boise, he drove west through Meridian and Canyon County to visit the farmers.”

Roosevelt went on to Portland, where he dedicated Bonneville Dam, the first of the federal dams that would provide cheap power to kickstart the Northwest economy and help win the coming war.

In 1942, in the early days of World War II, Roosevelt returned to Idaho to open and name the Farragut Naval Station, riding from Spokane to Sandpoint in an open car with Idaho Gov. Chase Clark, the father of the late Bethine Church.

TRUMAN, EISENHOWER, KENNEDY, JOHNSON

Harry Truman’s 1948 whistlestop campaign across the United States included Boise and Pocatello.

Eisenhower visited Sun Valley in 1948 and returned to campaign at the Western Governors Association meeting in 1952. He returned again in 1962.

Sen. John F. Kennedy campaigned for Frank Church in 1956, Bethine Church said. Kennedy visited Pocatello during his presidential campaign in 1960.

Johnson went to the Idaho National Laboratory, then called the National Atomic Reactor Testing Station, to dedicate an experimental reactor in 1964. He also spoke at the Boise Airport, where 25,000 people turned out.

NIXON, FORD, REAGAN WERE HERE FREQUENTLY

Richard Nixon spent a lot of time in Idaho, often with Idaho Gov. Robert Smylie. Nixon visited Idaho once as president, campaigning for re-election in Boise in 1972.

Gerald Ford vacationed often in Idaho, skiing and golfing in Sun Valley, and spoke in Twin Falls in 1995.

Jimmy Carter floated the Middle Fork of the Salmon River with his family in August 1978 at the invitation of Andrus, his Interior secretary.

Ronald Reagan, another Californian, came to Idaho often as a candidate, beginning in 1976, and as president. He came twice to help Sen. Steve Symms win re-election.

Idaho Gov. Butch Otter, then lieutenant governor, was the master of ceremonies for an October 1985 rally at the Morrison Center. Reagan returned in October 1986 to Twin Falls and rode to the rally on a buckboard wagon. Otter was the first to greet him.

BUSH, CLINTON AND DUCK HUNTERS

President George H.W. Bush visited in 1990. He’d been in Idaho twice as vice president. In 1984, he floated the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. While campaigning for Republicans in 1982, he spent five minutes under a table at the Chart House Restaurant, now Joe’s Crab Shack, when Secret Service agents spotted an armed duck hunter walking by the riverside window. A waiter joked to the squatting vice president that he could bring him a booster seat so he could eat his steak.

Bill Clinton visited several times. He came in 1996 to comfort flood victims and returned that summer to campaign in Idaho Falls on his way back from vacation in Jackson, Wyo. He stopped in Idaho Falls in 1995 on his way to Jackson but had no official activities.

Clinton visited in 2000 to support firefighters in McCall. Despite the strong antipathy toward him from Republicans, Clinton always was welcomed warmly by Idaho’s congressional delegation and Govs. Phil Batt and Dirk Kempthorne.

ROMANTIC VISITS?

Numerous reports from North Idaho say Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who served as president in 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, visited Idaho frequently to visit a mistress. The woman, identified as Frieda Bethmann, lived in a home purportedly purchased by Cleveland near Kamiah.

They had an illegitimate son, according to rumors published in the Lewiston Tribune in a 1990 story by Diane Pettit. Other reports had him taking the railroad to Pomeroy, Wash., where he was one of two presidents to sign the register of the St. George Hotel, now known as the Revere.

“He actually stopped here many, many times,” Beverly Gordon, one of the owners of the Revere, said in 2005.

Rocky Barker: 377-6484

This story was originally published January 20, 2015 at 12:00 AM.