A short history of White Bird
At the southwest corner of the Camas Prairie, White Bird is near the Salmon River crossing point for the Lewis and Clark expedition. It is also the location of the Battle of White Bird Canyon in 1877, which was the first fight of the Nez Perce War and a significant defeat of the U.S. Army.
The summit of White Bird Hill is 2,700 feet (820 m) above the city, ascended via U.S. Highway 95. The steeper, straighter and faster multi-lane grade of U.S. 95 was opened 51 years ago in 1975, after ten challenging years of construction. The two-lane road of 1921 to the east was first paved in 1938; it left the Salmon River at White Bird Creek, followed it up through White Bird and then gradually climbed the grade in twice the distance, with multiple switchback curves to a higher summit, without a cut.
Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article White Bird, Idaho, revision 1379647175 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.