Lincoln (proposed Northwestern state)

Montana was made a territory in May 1864 and the Panhandle was specifically excluded in order to prevent Lewiston, west of both the Continental Divide along the crest of the Rockies and of the Bitterroot Range, from remaining the capital.

The reasoning was that Lewiston sits on the western edge, across the Snake River from Washington, whereas Montana stretches to North Dakota.

[2] In 1901 another proposal was made, this time to combine the Idaho Panhandle with Eastern Washington to create the state of Lincoln.

A third proposal was popularized in the late 1920s to consist of eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana to the Continental Divide.

This proposed coupling would create one of the largest states by area in the country, stretching all the way from the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range to the border with Idaho in the east.

A Spokane proposal in 1907 called for a new state "Lincoln" to be created from eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and northern Idaho.

[1] "Wyoming" was the simple English transliteration of the Lenape Indian tribe's word for "large plains",[6] which was considered descriptive of the land but undesirable due to its distant origin in Pennsylvania.