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Custer County, Idaho

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles

—digitized titles

38historic places

—earliest paper

1881formed

4,275pop. 2020

9cemeteries

—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 38 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1975. Most listings are in or near Challis, Stanley, Clayton.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Idaho is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Custer titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

29 of 38 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

38 listed properties

Property	City	Type	Listed
Bayhorse	Challis	Building	1976
Board-and-Batten Commercial Building	Challis	Building	1980
Building at 247 Pleasant Avenue	Challis	Building	1980
Buster Meat Market	Challis	Building	1980
Bux's Place	Challis	Building	1980
Challis Archeological Spring District	Challis	District	1981
Challis Bison Jump Site	Challis	Site	1975
Challis Brewery Historic District	Challis	District	1980
Challis Cold Storage	Challis	Building	1980
Challis High School	Challis	Building	1980
Chivers, Bill, House	Challis	Building	1980
Chivers, Thomas, Cellar	Challis	Building	1980
Chivers, Thomas, House	Challis	Building	1980
Custer County Jail	Challis	Building	1980
Custer Historic District	Custer	District	1981
Day, Ivan W., House	Stanley	Building	1986
East Fork Lookout	Clayton	Site	1976
False-Front Commercial Building	Challis	Building	1980
Hosford, Emmett, House	Challis	Building	1980
I.O.O.F. Hall	Challis	Building	1980
Idaho Mining and Smelter Company Store	Clayton	Building	2006
Idaho Rocky Mountain Club	Stanley	District	1994
Mackay Episcopal Church	Mackay	Building	1982
Mackay Methodist Episcopal Church	Mackay	Building	1984
McKendrick House	Challis	Building	1980
Niece Brothers' Store	Stanley	Building	1995
Old Challis Historic District	Challis	District	1980
Peck, Bill, House	Challis	Building	1980
Penwell House	Challis	Building	1980
Redfish Archeological District	Stanley	District	1983
Rowles, Donaldson, House	Challis	Building	1980
Smith, Henry, House	Challis	Building	1980
Stanley Ranger Station	Stanley	Building	1982
Stone Building	Challis	Building	1980
Stone and Log Building	Challis	Building	1980
Twin Peaks Sports	Challis	Building	1980
Wilkinson, Clyde, House	Challis	Building	1980
Yankee Fork Gold Dredge	Stanley	Structure	2021

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Custer was formed in 1881 (1881-04-01) from Alturas, Boise, Lemhi.

CUSTER created by Idaho Territory from ALTURAS (extinct), BOISE, and LEMHI.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Custer County population from 1890 to 2020 (Census historical series).

1890	1900	1920	1940	1950	1960	1980	2000	2020
2,176	2,049	3,550	3,549	3,318	2,996	3,385	4,342	4,275

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

9 cemeteries and 6 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 9 of 9 listed

Name	Lat	Lon
Barton Flat Cemetery	43.97267	-113.8324
Battleground Cemetery	43.96486	-113.7039
Boot Hill Cemetery	44.37215	-114.73539
Challis Cemetery	44.50078	-114.23033
Chilly Cemetery	44.06462	-113.91242
Darlington Cemetery	43.8139	-113.45413
Houston Cemetery	43.8732	-113.57754
Mount McCaleb Cemetery	43.91755	-113.60364
Stanley Cemetery	44.22116	-114.93477

Historical populated places — 6 of 6

Name	Lat	Lon
Alder City	43.87241	-113.52029
Cape Horn	44.40491	-115.16815
Cliff	43.87574	-113.67808
Crystal	44.26742	-114.32589
Garden City	44.50742	-114.22479
White Knob	43.89241	-113.6703

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Custer County, Idaho

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.