Q 01/05

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

A) Four light bulbs

B) A radio station

C) A water pump

D) An electric train

Answer · why

A) Four light bulbs

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

Q 02/05

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

A) Elk Crossing

B) Eagle Rock

C) Bear Gulch

D) Antelope Flat

Answer · why

B) Eagle Rock

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

Q 03/05

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

A) A sugar beet refinery

B) A rail yard

C) A hydroelectric plant

D) A city reservoir

Answer · why

C) A hydroelectric plant

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

Q 04/05

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

A) Fred Gipson

B) Jack London

C) Gary Paulsen

D) Wilson Rawls

Answer · why

D) Wilson Rawls

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.

Q 05/05

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

A) Atomic City

B) Arco

C) Blackfoot

D) Rexburg

Answer · why

B) Arco

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