Senator George L. Shoup

Born June 15, 1836, Kittanning, Pennsylvania
Died December 21, 1904, Boise, Idaho

George Shoup was Idaho's last territorial governor, and, after Idaho achieved statehood on Jul. 3, 1890, the first state governor. He resigned that position to become Idaho's first U.S. Senator. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1890.

Shoup was a stockman in Illinois, wagon train captain in Denver, Colorado, and a member of the Independent Scouts of Colorado, and a miner before moving to Virginia City, Montana, where he opened a general store in 1866. Later in that year, he opened a similar store in Salmon City, Idaho. The latter city became his permanent home the following year, and in 1868, he married Switzerland native Lena Darnutzer. They became the parents of six children.

Shoup became a successful cattleman as well as merchant. In the early 1870s, he developed friendship with Tendoy, Chief of a mixed band of Shoshone, Bannock and Sheepeater Native Americans. It was through this friendship that Shoup was instrumental in smoothing relations between settlers and indigenous people.

On January 15, 1910, a 12-foot statue of the Honorable George Laird Shoup was erected in Statuary Hall in the National Capitol.