Weiser, Idaho

As the "Fiddling Capital of the World," Weiser has held the National Oldtime Fiddlers Contest every year since 1953. There have been fiddling contests almost every year in Weiser since about 1914 but this "National" contest was the idea of the head of the Chamber of Commerce back in 1953, Blaine Stubblefield (also a fiddler, of course). The festival happens every year around the summer solstice. Since 2000, they've added clogging contests to the festivities.

There seems to be 2 stories as to how Weiser got its name. There was a Peter M. Weiser who was part of the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804-1806. Then there was a Jacob Weiser who discovered gold in the Florence Basin of Idaho and settled near Weiser in 1863.

In the late 1800's, Weiser became a transportation hub for travelers when a railroad way station was built here. The town boomed for a couple decades and in the 1890's and early 1900's, a large number of buildings were constructed that are now on the National Register of Historic Places.