County Past
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Gem County, Idaho

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

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
10historic places
—earliest paper
1915formed
19,123pop. 2020
2cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 10 listed properties in the county, first listed in 1980. Most listings are in or near Emmett, Ola, Sweet.

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 Gem titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

10 of 10 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

10 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Bliss, F. T., HouseEmmettBuilding1982
Catholic Church of the Sacred HeartEmmettBuilding1980
Emmett Presbyterian ChurchEmmettBuilding1980
First Baptist Church of EmmettEmmettBuilding1980
Gem County CourthouseEmmettBuilding1982
Methodist Episcopal ChurchEmmettBuilding1980
Ola SchoolOlaBuilding1992
Oregon Short Line Railway DepotEmmettBuilding1995
St. Mary's Episcopal ChurchEmmettBuilding1980
Sweet Methodist Episcopal ChurchSweetBuilding1997

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

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Gem was formed in 1915 (1915-05-11) from Boise, Canyon.

GEM created from BOISE and CANYON.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Gem County population from 1920 to 2020 (Census historical series).

19k13k6,42719201960197020002020
1920194019501960198020002020
6,4279,5448,7309,12711,97215,18119,123

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

National Park Service sites nearby

NPS

Park units within about 40 km of the county centroid (from NPS Public POIs; no API key).

SiteTypeDist.
Minidoka Internment National MonumentPark unit34.6 km

Source: NPS National Datasets / Public POIs. The NPS Developer API requires a free key and was not used.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

2 cemeteries and 2 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 2 of 2 listed
NameLatLon
Emmett Cemetery43.88951-116.50221
Sweet Cemetery43.95416-116.33427
Historical populated places — 2 of 2
NameLatLon
Aikman43.81655-116.40513
Marsh43.9185-116.33985

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 Gem County, Idaho

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