Weiser

Weiser sits where the Weiser River meets the Snake, a farm and railroad town of about five thousand that began in 1863 as a way station for emigrant wagons. There have been fiddlers here as long as there have been wagons, and fiddle contests since at least 1914. The one that made the town's name started in 1953, when Blaine Stubblefield, the chamber of commerce secretary, talked its directors into putting up $175 for a contest. He had grown up fiddling in Oregon's Wallowa Valley, just over Hells Canyon, and had spent years collecting fiddle music for the Library of Congress. The first Northwest Mountain Fiddlers' Contest ran alongside a square-dance festival and was a hit, and in 1963, for Idaho's territorial centennial, it became the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest.

It runs the third full week of June in the high school auditorium. Contestants compete in divisions by age and style, from small children to seniors, and each plays three tunes — a hoedown, a waltz and a tune of their choice — without sheet music. The national finals come on Saturday. The contest is only half of it. Hundreds of musicians camp in town for the week, the jamming in the campground goes on around the clock, and there is a parade down the main street and a free stage in the park.

The rest of the year Weiser is a quiet stop on US-95. For many years it was also the last town upriver of Hells Canyon, where powered raft trips and sturgeon fishermen set out for the gorge.