The director of the U.S. Mint and an array of other officials gathered in tiny Salmon on Wednesday morning to mark the release of a new quarter commemorating Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.

The Idaho quarter is the 50th in a 12-year program honoring “America the Beautiful” with specially designed quarters; there are six more to come over the next year. Five new ones are being released a year, each honoring a national park or other site of national significance; they’re being released in order of when each site was officially designated.

Mint Director David Ryder said the new quarter “serves as a reminder of the essence of the wilderness: More than 2 million acres of prehistoric mountains, fertile conifers and commanding rivers but flourishing with stories of heritage and wonder.”

In Idaho, this particular one points to the heritage of the late Idaho Sen. Frank Church, said current 2nd District GOP Rep. Mike Simpson.

“Idaho’s long been a leader in creating local solutions that fit our way of life,” Simpson told the crowd at the ceremony. “Perhaps there’s no greater example of a law that allows for creating local solutions than the Wilderness Act. It’s no coincidence that at the heart of this law and the principles which guide it, is Sen. Frank Church, who authored the law. While not every acre in Idaho is suitable for wilderness, the law allows county commissioners, local citizens, conservation groups, ranchers and many more to all have a seat at the table and find out what works for them.”

“There are many examples of this collaboration in Idaho, such as the Frank Church wilderness area, the great coin that we are honoring today; the Owhyee Initiative and the Sawtooths. I was fortunate to be able to undergo a multi-decade process of collaboration on the Boulder-White Clouds,” Simpson said. “Instead of letting others decide how our lands are managed, we came up with an Idaho solution. None of this would be possible without Frank Church and how he created this collaborative process.”

Simpson said, “Between this commemorative coin and all of the beautiful places across our state, and of course the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, we are blessed to live in Idaho, and we are blessed for the people who came before us that created Idaho’s legacy.”

Former Democratic Idaho Congressman Larry LaRocco, who was an aide to Sen. Church before LaRocco went on to serve in elective office, said, “Frank Church was a giant in the conservation arena. … The Frank quarter represents the capstone of Sen. Church’s amazing record to protect the best of America’s resources.”

LaRocco said the wilderness area named for Church, nicknamed “The Frank,” encompasses about 5% of Idaho’s land mass and is the largest wilderness in the lower 48 states.

The bill creating it was signed into law in 1980, he said. “The Congress acted in a bipartisan way to accept Sen. Church’s proposal. Next year, Idaho and the nation will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the creation of this wilderness.”