Lowman

Nathaniel Winfield Lowman was a homesteader from Polk County, Iowa. The place nearly ended in the summer of 1989, when dry lightning in July started 157 fires in the Boise National Forest, 36 of them in one day. The Lowman Fire burned from July 26 to August 30 and took more than 45,000 acres and 26 structures, much of it on the edge of town, without a death or an injury; more than 2,300 firefighters worked it, and it was called the state's worst since 1910. The school is still one room.

What the plaque says

Lowman In 1907, Nathaniel W. Lowman settled here, and four years later, when he started a post office in his large log house, this community was named for him. Only a few scattered settlers lived here then. Lowman got all its supplies once a year from a large freight wagon over a state road built in 1894 to provide access to North Idaho. This highway followed in 1939. Eventually a one-room schoolhouse was moved here from Garden Valley. It still serves Lowman. 444 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kirkham Hot Springs — 3.3 mi
  Hot water pours off a ledge into pools at the edge of the South Fork Payette, a staircase down from the highway.
• Pon Yam House — 21 mi
  The store of Idaho City's king merchant, where the Chinese of the Boise Basin bought cuttlefish, incense and firecrackers.

More markers nearby

• Emma Edwards — 4.1 mi
• Emile Grandjean — 19 mi
• Idaho City — 21 mi
• Grimes' Creek — 30 mi