Abalone Shell hand-painted by Ada Riggs
Museum Treasures - Abalone Shell hand-painted by Ada Riggs
by Penny Eggen
On the organ is a large abalone shell, painted by Ada Riggs, depicting Cliff House on the coast below San Francisco. Ada County was named after Ada Riggs whose father was an Idaho Territorial Legislator; one of the founders of Boise. In the beginning, Lewiston was the capitol due to the large population and gold mines located there. When the mines played out and gold was discovered in the Idaho City area, the population shifted to the south. Idaho City was considered to be too hard to get to in the winter, so Boise was chosen to be the new capitol. Lewiston refused to surrender the territorial charter for the capitol to be moved to Boise. Ada's father traveled, with a troop escort, to Lewiston to retrieve the charter. He stole the territorial charter in the dead of night and took it back to Boise. He also brought the first quail to Boise. He was given $100.00 to buy 100 baby quail and traveled to Missouri by train to make the purchase. Emmett received one-third of the quail.
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