Warren is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in the remote north central region of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, near the

Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Cur ...

Geography

Located within the

Payette National Forest The Payette National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in central western Idaho, in parts of Valley, Idaho, Adams, and Washington counties. The land area consists of approximately 2.3 million acres (9,300 km2) of federally managed ...

in southern

Idaho County Idaho County is a county in the U.S. state of Idaho, and the largest by area in the state. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,541. The county seat is Grangeville. Previous county seats of the area were Florence Florence ( ; it ...

, Warren is northeast of McCall, approximately by vehicle and about by air. South of the Salmon River, the

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as ''orthometric heights''. The comb ...

Climate

According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

system, Warren has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of an ocean, ge ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

Dfc).

History

Miners from the previous

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

strikes in

Pierce Pierce may refer to: Places Canada * Pierce Range, a mountain range on Vancouver Island, British Columbia United States * Pierce, Colorado * Pierce, Idaho * Pierce, Illinois * Pierce, Kentucky * Pierce, Nebraska * Pierce, Texas * Pierce, We ...

and

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

fanned out to the south and discovered gold in the

Warren Creek Warren Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Warren Creek has the name of a pioneer trapper. See also *List of rivers of South Dakota This is a list of rivers in the state of South Dakota in the United States. By tributary Minn ...

area in August 1862. It led to the formation of the settlement, then in

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

, making it one of the oldest settlements in present-day Idaho. With a gold mining boom in multiple regions during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, the

Idaho Territory The Territory of Idaho was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 3, 1863, until July 3, 1890, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as Idaho. History 1860s The territory w ...

was established in 1863. Shortly after the gold discovery by Lewiston's James Warren, the Warren's Camp population swelled to over 2,000; the southerners called their area of the camp "Richmond" and northerners called theirs "Washington." Washington was established as the seat of Idaho County from June 1, 1869 until voters in the June 1875 election selected Mount Idaho over Slate Creek and Washington. After the initial boom ended in 1875, Warren was known for its significant

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

population. The boom-town population plummeted when mining declined, but enjoyed a brief renaissance in the 1930s with the introduction of

dredge Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

mining in the area.Warren Idaho Walking Tour
/ref> During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, gold mining was shut down by the U.S. government in 1942. Following the war, interest in Warren was high for

rare-earth metal The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides (yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silve ...

s in its by-product

monazite Monazite is a primarily reddish-brown phosphate mineral that contains rare-earth elements. Due to variability in composition, monazite is considered a group of minerals. The most common species of the group is monazite-(Ce), that is, the cerium- ...

. A modest gold mining industry remains in the area. The town has been threatened several times by

forest fires A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...

, most recently in 1989, 2000, and 2007. Recent fires have made the Warren area a haven for

morel mushroom ''Morchella'', the true morels, is a genus of edible sac fungi closely related to anatomically simpler cup fungi in the order Pezizales (division Ascomycota). These distinctive fungi have a honeycomb appearance due to the network of ridges wi ...

hunting Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

. Warren currently has a full-time population of 12 to 16.Warren Idaho
/ref>

Population history

* 1864 census: 521 (509 men, 10 women, 2 children) * 1863 census: 660

References

Additional sources