40 Fun Facts About Idaho Falls

In 1951 the EBR-I reactor in the desert west of Idaho Falls made nuclear history by powering what?

Four light bulbs of 200 watts each glowed on December 20, 1951, and a day later the breeder reactor was supplying its whole building.

What was Idaho Falls called until 1891, when promoters renamed it for rapids on the Snake River?

Eagle Rock came from an island in the river where about twenty eagles nested; the settlement had started out as Taylor's Crossing.

The waterfalls at Idaho Falls took shape only after a retaining wall was built for what?

A hydroelectric plant needed the wall, which turned what had been rapids into falls some years after the city had already taken its name.

Which author wrote Where the Red Fern Grows after working construction near Idaho Falls?

Wilson Rawls burned his manuscripts before marrying a woman he met there; she urged him to rewrite one, and he reportedly finished it in three weeks.

Which small Idaho town became, in 1955, the first community anywhere lit solely by nuclear power?

Arco ran for about an hour on July 17, 1955, on electricity from the experimental BORAX-III reactor at the testing station next door.

The Idaho Falls Pioneer League baseball club took its name, by fan vote, from which game bird?

Chukar partridges, native to Asia, now live wild in the region; fans chose the name after the 2003 season, when the club's major league affiliation changed.

Which Idaho dam collapsed in June 1976 as it first filled, sending a flood toward Idaho Falls?

Teton Dam's failure killed 11 people and thousands of livestock; Idaho Falls, farther down the flood plain, had time to prepare.

After the Emotion Bowl between Idaho Falls and Skyline high schools, what do the winners paint?

The goalposts turn orange for an Idaho Falls High win or blue for Skyline, painted by the winning team and its fans once the game is over.

Which U.S. military branch trained nearly 40,000 personnel at a reactor facility near Idaho Falls?

Navy crews learned to run ship and submarine power plants on prototypes built far from any ocean, from the early 1950s to the mid-1990s.

What delayed the dedication of the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple, whose exterior was finished in 1941?

World War II shortages stalled work on the interior, and the temple was finally dedicated one month after the fighting ended.

Idaho Falls is twinned with Tokai, a town built around nuclear research, in which country?

Japan saw its first nuclear reactor go critical in Tokai, a fitting partner for a city that grew up beside a reactor testing station.

What did Matt Taylor build across the Snake River in the 1860s, founding the future Idaho Falls?

A toll bridge of timber spanned a narrow gorge, speeding miners and freighters north, and by the end of 1865 a bank, hotel and stage station stood beside it.

Idaho Falls nearly died in 1887 when the railroad moved most of its facilities to which city?

Pocatello gained the shops after a railroad workers' strike, and the sharp, immediate drop in population nearly killed the older town.

Which Gilded Age financier backed the Utah and Northern Railway, which reached Idaho Falls in 1879?

Jay Gould stood behind the line through Union Pacific, which had bought the bankrupt railroad and was driving it north to the copper mines at Butte.

Early wagon traffic crossing the river at Idaho Falls was bound for gold fields in which territory?

Montana boom towns such as Bannack and Virginia City pulled miners and freighters north along a wagon road that began in Salt Lake City.

Which interstate highway passes through Idaho Falls on its long run north from San Diego?

I-15 enters Idaho from Utah and leaves over Monida Pass, covering 196 miles down the eastern side of the state.

Which newspaper is based in Idaho Falls, formed when two rival local papers merged?

Post Register became the masthead in 1931, when the owners of the Idaho Falls Post bought the rival Times-Register and merged the two papers.

Which Idaho Falls city park holds the zoo, the Funland amusement rides and an ice arena?

Tautphaus Park began as the ranch of Charles Tautphaus, who dug canals and a reservoir to water his desert claim; the city bought the land in the 1930s.

The Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls grew out of a library funded by which industrialist?

Andrew Carnegie's foundation granted $15,000 in 1913 to a women's club, the Village Improvement Society; the old library was later saved from demolition.

The Snake River, which flows through Idaho Falls, is the largest tributary of which river?

Columbia water carries the Snake to the Pacific; the two rivers meet in Washington after the Snake has run about 1,080 miles.

Which junior hockey team was founded in 2022 to play at a newly built arena in Idaho Falls?

Spud Kings was the name given to an expansion franchise approved in March 2022, eight months before its home arena opened to the public.

When Idaho Falls joined baseball's Pioneer League in 1940, its team took which potato nickname?

Russets was the choice in 1940; the club later played as the Yankees, Angels, Braves and Padres as its major league partners changed.

Which wellness company, long led by Frank VanderSloot, paid to finish the Idaho Falls ballpark?

Melaleuca put up $600,000 to cover a late budget shortfall, and the rebuilt park, dedicated in June 2007, has carried the company's name ever since.

The fatal 1961 SL-1 reactor accident near Idaho Falls began when an operator pulled what too far?

A control rod meant to be lifted only a few inches came out roughly twenty, and the Army reactor went prompt critical in milliseconds, killing all three men present.

Locals in Idaho Falls call the vast Idaho National Laboratory complex by what short nickname?

The Site sprawls over 890 square miles of high desert, where more than 50 reactors have been built, the largest concentration in the world.

Idaho National Laboratory, a major employer for Idaho Falls, belongs to which federal department?

Energy inherited the laboratory, which the Atomic Energy Commission opened in 1949 as the National Reactor Testing Station.

Which Idaho Falls-born lawyer was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1998 after three terms in the House?

Mike Crapo practised law in his home city through the 1980s and led the Idaho Senate before he went to Washington.

Which Idaho Falls-born journalist moderated the 2012 debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan?

Martha Raddatz, a foreign affairs correspondent for ABC News, went on to co-moderate a 2016 presidential debate with Anderson Cooper.

Idaho Falls native Greg Carr set out to restore Gorongosa National Park in which African country?

Mozambique had seen the park ravaged by civil war; Carr, who made his money selling voice mail systems to phone companies, has funded its recovery for decades.

Todd Pedersen, who grew up in Idaho Falls, founded which smart-home security company in Utah?

Vivint started in 1999 as APX Alarm, built on door-to-door selling, and took its present name in 2011.

Unlike the Idaho Panhandle, Idaho Falls sets its clocks by which of the state's two zones?

Mountain Time covers southern Idaho, while the northern counties that lie east of Washington keep Pacific Time.

Idaho Falls native Brandi Sherwood won a national teen pageant in 1989 and later held which crown?

Miss USA passed to Sherwood, the first runner-up in 1997, when winner Brook Lee went on to be crowned Miss Universe.

U.S. Route 20 runs northeast from Idaho Falls toward the west entrance of which national park?

Yellowstone's west entrance lies just beyond the state line, reached after the highway crosses the Continental Divide at Targhee Pass.

Which television pioneer sketched his idea for a teacher at Rigby High School, near Idaho Falls?

Philo Farnsworth covered several blackboards with diagrams for science teacher Justin Tolman, who encouraged the teenager to develop the idea.

The Great Feeder, opened near Idaho Falls in 1895, was billed as the world's largest example of what?

Irrigation canal water diverted from the Snake River turned tens of thousands of acres of desert into farmland for sugar beets, potatoes and grain.

Which lava field, a National Natural Landmark since 1976, lies about 25 miles west of Idaho Falls?

Hell's Half Acre spreads over about 150 square miles, with a former lava lake, ten circular pits and two large lava tubes near its summit.

Which future Oakland slugger, one of the Bash Brothers, played minor league baseball in Idaho Falls?

Jose Canseco passed through the Idaho Falls A's on his way up and later became the first major leaguer with 40 homers and 40 steals in one season.

Idaho Falls is the seat of a county named for which French-born Army officer who explored the West?

Benjamin Bonneville toured the Snake River country in the 1830s on leave from the Army, and Washington Irving's account of his travels made him famous.

The Advanced Test Reactor, in the desert west of Idaho Falls, has a core shaped like what?

A four-leaf clover layout gives the core separate lobes that operators can run independently, so tests can run under different conditions at once.

Idaho Falls grew up where the Snake River squeezes through a gorge of which black volcanic stone?

Basalt from old lava flows underlies almost all of the eastern Snake River Plain, and the tight gorge it formed here made a natural crossing point.