Idaho State Coat of Arms

The coat of arms appears on the Idaho state seal, used on official documents, government correspondence, and public buildings throughout the state. Idaho adopted the design on March 14, 1891 — less than a year after achieving statehood on July 3, 1890.

The design was revised once, in 1957, when the Idaho Legislature commissioned Paul B. Evans and the Caxton Printers to update the artwork while preserving the original composition. The 1891 arrangement of figures, shield, and motto has remained unchanged since adoption.

When Idaho became a state in 1890, the new Legislature needed an official seal. The state held a design competition. Emma Edwards Green, an art teacher who had recently moved to Boise, entered and won. Governor Norman B. Willey awarded her a $100 honorarium, and the Legislature formally adopted her design on March 14, 1891.

Emma Edwards Green was the daughter of John Cummins Edwards, a former Governor of Missouri. She had studied art in New York before settling in Boise. Her design for the Idaho seal made her the only woman in U.S. history to design a state seal — a distinction that has not changed in over 130 years.

In 1957, the Idaho Legislature's 34th session authorized a revision of the seal. Paul B. Evans and the Caxton Printers updated the artwork to improve the rendering, but the composition — the two figures, the shield, the elk head, and the motto — remained exactly as Green had drawn it in 1891.

Before statehood, Idaho had used two territorial seals. The first was organized in 1863 when Idaho Territory was formed. A second design was presented by Governor Caleb Lyon to the Idaho Territorial Legislature on January 11, 1866, and used until statehood in 1890.

The Idaho coat of arms is built around a central shield flanked by two figures, with an elk head above and agricultural symbols below. Each element represents a specific aspect of Idaho's economy, landscape, or civic values.

The two figures at the center of the design tell a specific story about Idaho in 1891. Mining dominated the economy. Emma Edwards Green chose to pair the miner not with another male figure of industry but with a woman — placed at the same height, carrying symbols of law and freedom.

The equality of the two figures was intentional. Green designed the seal before the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) gave women the right to vote. The matching height was her way of inscribing equality into official Idaho imagery while the law had not yet caught up.

The shield connects that civic statement to the physical state: the Snake River, the pine forests, the mountains, the farmland. The elk above and the grain below frame the design with the wildlife and crops Idaho was working to protect and build.

Idaho used two territorial seals before statehood. The first was created in 1863 when Idaho Territory was officially organized. A second design was presented by Governor Caleb Lyon to the Idaho Territorial Legislature on January 11, 1866, and used until statehood.

In 1876, cartographer Henry Mitchell included an Idaho territorial coat of arms in his publication State Arms of the Union, based on the 1866 territorial seal. None of these territorial designs had the same legal standing as the official state seal adopted in 1891.