The Hayden creek our reader asked about flows into Hayden Lake in Kootenai County and is not mentioned in Boones book. The lake and town are named after Matt Heyden (sic), soit follows that the creek probably also carries his name. Heyden was reportedly (wait for it…) playing cards with John Hager at Hager’s cabin. There was no gunplay involved with this one. The two men agreed to name the lake after the winner of a seven-up game. Heyden won. Why the name is spelled differently is not explained in Boone’s book, but the U.S. Postal Service was frequently the culprit, having a reputation at that time for little attention to detail.
But wait! There’s more! We can’t forget Hayden Peak in Owyhee County. It was named after Everett Hayden, a surveyor working for the Smithsonian Institution in the 1880s. Reportedly there was some local grumbling at the time because Hayden had never even been near the peak.
And, maybe there should be something else named Hayden in Idaho after a man the state has so far not honored. It was Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden (photo) who lead the famous Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone in 1871, which passed through Fort Hall on its way to what would become our nation’s first national park. The expedition named a lot of things, including Higham Peak in Bannock County, but nothing in Idaho bears the name of its leader.