While cameras rolled, the newly completed Teton Dam collapsed shortly before noon on June 5, 1976. The resulting wall of water, 80 billion gallons strong, battered town after town during its three-day rampage through the Upper Snake River Valley in eastern Idaho. Impounding the flood-prone Teton River, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dam failed during the reservoir's initial fill, ripping homes from foundations, drowning thousands of livestock, and stripping acres of valuable topsoil. Amazingly only 11 lives were lost during the disaster, as most residents heeded the flood warnings. Presenting photographs from local newspapers, archives, museums, historical societies, and witnesses, this book documents the dam's spectacular failure, the tremendous damage, and the Herculean cleanup and rebuilding process following one of the worst engineering disasters of the last 50 years. Today the investigation into why the 305-foot-tall earth-fill dam crumbled-ironically a dam built for flood control-still prompts debate.
Lewiston
9781467127073
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Lewiston, Idaho, started with wild beginnings and stayed that way for generations. Officially founded in 1861, its origins are born from a gold rush. When gold was discovered up the river in a neighboring town called Pierce, it brought hopeful miners from near and far panning up and down the river. From that population sprang a tent city that would become Lewiston, along with the stories that informed of Lewiston's early history and growth, full of gambling, drinking, wild women, and the occasional murder. This volume covers Lewiston's history, beginning with its official founding in 1861 and expanding the history through the early 1970s, while focusing on the town's heyday in the 1950s.
The Silver Valley
9780738581750
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
The descent into Idaho from the Montana border down Lookout Pass on Interstate 90 largely follows the trail Capt. John Mullan blazed over 150 years ago. The Silver Valley is home to Shoshone County's seat, the historic silver-mining city of Wallace, which has been something of a phoenix rising out of the ashes of two great fires. Along with Wallace, the valley encompasses many other small mining towns, such as Mullan, Silverton, Osburn, Kellogg, Smelterville, Pinehurst, and Kingston, with diverse histories that are both humorous and heartbreaking. It also surrounds the Cataldo Mission, Idaho's oldest standing building, built by the Jesuits and the Coeur d'Alene tribe in 1848.
Idaho Falls
9780738548708
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Taylor's Crossing began as a wooden toll bridge over a narrow spot on the Snake River for travelers along the Old Montana Trail. By 1883, it was known as Eagle Rock, a dusty outpost for railroad workers, bullwhackers, and miners. "We can not claim an orderly town," the newspaper reported. "The reckless firing of firearms at all hours of the day and night is a nuisance that should be stopped." When the railroad pulled out its shops, the town almost died. Following statehood and another name change, Idaho Falls transformed itself into an agricultural center and outfitting point for visitors to Yellowstone Park. In 1949, the Atomic Energy Commission arrived, and the nearby desert became a training ground for the nuclear navy, the test site for a new "inherently safe" boiling-water reactor design and the location of the world's first fatal nuclear accident.
Priest River and Priest Lake
9780738589190
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
The first permanent settlers of Kaniksu County filtered into the Priest River and Priest Lake area of northern Idaho's panhandle in the late 1880s. Some came to build homes, farms, and businesses in an area where none had existed before. Others were more interested in trapping and prospecting; they sought to lead solitary and eccentric lives away from civilization. Most settlers learned quickly that harvesting the vast timber wealth of the heavily forested mountains was the best way to earn a livelihood. For almost 50 years, millions of logs and cedar poles were sent down the tumultuous Priest River to its confluence with the larger Pend Oreille. This was believed to be the second-to-last log drive to end in the lower 48 states. Construction of the Great Northern Railroad in 1892 spurred both industry and settlement, opening the way for sawmills downstream to service their markets until modern roads and trucking came into existence.
Twin Falls
9780738580272
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Images of America: Twin Falls tells the story of the transformation of a sagebrush plain into productive farmland at the beginning of the 20th century. Engineers and investors found a way to capture the water of the Snake River for extensive irrigation and completed Milner Dam and the related canal system in 1905. The success of the Twin Falls South Side Irrigation Tract was associated with other reclamation projects in the region, resulting in the permanent settlement of south-central Idaho. New residents built modern schools, fine homes, and imposing business blocks. Prosperous farms and orchards dotted the landscape. Twin Falls became a wholesale center for storing, processing, and shipping agricultural commodities in the United States and abroad.
Nampa
9781467132121
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Nampa began as a railroad siding on the Idaho Central Railway in 1885. There was no town then, only a water tower and a few shacks. In 1886, however, Alexander Duffes incorporated the town of Nampa. A year later, the Boise & Idaho Railway was completed, and the town grew from 15 to 50 houses. By 1904, cultivated land reached 40,000 acres. The Deer Flat Reservoir, finished in 1909, irrigated 150,000 acres, and farms, livestock, and fruit orchards flourished across the desert. Canning and evaporating facilities were built to process local crops, and an iron foundry, lumber yards, and other industries helped the town grow to 1,500 people. Three railroads met in Nampa to transport local goods to the markets of the world. Today, Nampa is Idaho's second-largest city.
Moscow
9780738548685
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Each spring for centuries, the Nez Perce Indians visited the area they called Taxt-hinma (place of the spotted deer) to harvest the camas root. Today Taxt-hinma is Moscow, Idaho, a forward-looking university community dedicated to preserving the spirit of place that attracted the area's first permanent settlers in 1871. Originally known as Paradise, Moscow started out as a trading center serving homesteaders settling the prodigiously fertile Palouse. Since its incorporation as a city in 1887, Moscow has grown steadily upon a foundation of education and agriculture. From its central core of notable commercial and public buildings to the splendid houses that once sheltered its founders to the scenic University of Idaho campus, Moscow is clearly a community that values its cultural, economic, architectural, and natural heritage.
Preston
9781467132824
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Known first as Worm Creek because of a stream winding through dry bluffs, Preston, Idaho, blossomed as its first residents harnessed life-giving waters from surrounding mountains. The first homesteaders, who arrived in 1866, hauled lots of water, often wondering if their efforts to tame Mother Nature would ever pay off. On his way to Bear Lake, Brigham Young, colonizer of the West and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had his driver stop near the present business district of Preston. Placing his cane to the ground, he said, "There will be a great city built here." Today, Preston is a pretty great place.
Eagle
9780738595375
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Eagle may be the only city in the arid American West that was first settled on an island. Four young miners left Idaho's gold fields in 1863 to farm what is today called Eagle Island, between the Boise River's north and south channels. Not easily accessed by Indian raiding parties, the island also allowed ready irrigation of the first croplands. It was an island farming couple, Tom and Mary Aiken, that founded the village of Eagle on the north "mainland" starting in 1895. An interurban trolley in 1907 greatly stimulated the growth of the township, which became a service and food processing center for a large, rural hinterland. Nevertheless, Eagle was still a small farming town when it finally incorporated in 1971. During subsequent decades, though, it was transformed by explosive growth and upscale development into one of the wealthiest communities in the Pacific Northwest. Golf courses, hobby farms, a preoccupation with the arts, and foothill vineyards all attest to Eagle's modern affluence. However, this history largely focuses on Eagle's modest agricultural yesteryear.
Pocatello
9780738596457
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Pocatello, named in honor of a Shoshoni tribal chief, began as a stage station between Salt Lake City and the gold mines in Montana. By 1878, tracks of the Utah & Northern Railway were laid through the valley, and a narrow strip of shops and living quarters built alongside them became known as Pocatello Junction. From its beginnings, Pocatello demonstrated its distinction as an economic hub after the Oregon Short Line Railroad moved its main operations there from Eagle Rock (now Idaho Falls). This further facilitated the growth of Pocatello, which incorporated as a city in 1893. The establishment of the Academy of Idaho (now Idaho State University) signaled the growing importance of Pocatello as a center of learning. The town's influence as a cultural headquarters is evidenced by the top-level talent that was attracted to local theaters. The continued growth of Pocatello, fueled by its significance as a rail junction, led to the city becoming the major metropolitan area in southeastern Idaho.
Emmett and Gem County
9781467132442
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
The Payette River and some of its tributaries serve Gem County from border to border. An abundance of water, a mild climate with protected valley floors, and natural vegetation beckoned to those on Placerville's Umatilla Trail. Having reached the ocean, many of those who had not found their utopia were on the move again, looking with an experienced eye for a place to settle with their families. These valleys had blessed the Shoshoni Indians, as well as the fur trappers and enterprising people providing services to early travelers. As communities progressed, the timber industry, railroads, highways, agriculture, horticulture, and ranching matured to meet demand. This growth, with only occasional setbacks, is documented by this collection of photographs.
Boise
9780738559896
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
On a high-desert plateau of the Snake River Plain in southwestern Idaho, Boise, the "City of Trees," began as an encampment on the Oregon Trail along the Boise River. Natives were soon after displaced, and by 1864, a town site was platted north of the river, abutting the garrison at Fort Boise. Early settlers found livelihoods as merchants, supplying miners in the Boise Basin, where gold was discovered in 1862. Boiseans experienced difficulty accepting a municipal government and had to wrest territorial status from Lewiston in northern Idaho. Through decades of irrigation and commerce, they grappled with isolation and a scarcity of goods and amenities, which produced a remarkably resilient and vibrant population. From the railroad in 1880s to statehood in 1890, the interurban, and the airplane, rocket, and computer chip-making eras, Boise continues to grow and thrive.
Jerome
9780738595184
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
On June 30, 1907, Robert McCollum, Jerome Kuhn, and two other men rode in a horse-drawn wagon up the Blue Lakes Grade from Ira B. Perrine's Snake River Canyon ranch. Looking for the ideal spot to form a new town, they traveled 10 miles northwest through the sagebrush desert of Southern Idaho. By nightfall, they stopped to camp. The next morning, they awoke to a beautiful mountain vista and decided they had found the perfect spot for a town. Their campsite became the crossroads of West to East Main Streets and North to South Lincoln Streets--the exact center of Jerome, Idaho. From that humble beginning, Jerome has grown to 10,000 people with many sustained businesses and enterprises begun by new pioneers.
Old Idaho Penitentiary
9781467131674
Regular price
$23.99
Sale price
$16.79
Save 30%
Between 1872 and 1973, the Idaho State Penitentiary housed over 13,000 inmates. Some of Idaho's most corrupt and cunning criminals resided behind these Boise sandstone walls. Constructed in large part by inmate labor, the "Old Idaho Penitentiary" stands as a reminder of Idaho's Wild West past. Horse thieves, moonshiners, bank robbers, and assassins alike all called this penitentiary home. Owned and operated by the Idaho State Historical Society, the Old Idaho Penitentiary is one of only four territorial prisons open to the public in the United States.
Jefferson County
9780738559988
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Established in 1913, Jefferson County has a rich and varied history, spanning more time and growth than this date might suggest. The area was first a hunting ground for the Shoshone and Bannock tribes, then a range for hundreds of sheep and cattle. After the Utah-Northern Railroad arrived in 1879, word quickly spread of the region's fertile soil and plentiful water. While Jefferson County became an agricultural hub through unprecedented irrigation developments, it also nourished the minds of children; several famous innovators, scientists, and authors call Jefferson County home. This volume is based on church records, family and community histories, newspaper articles, government records, and oral histories, reflecting the forces that brought the county together in 1913 and its continuing growth and change.
Idaho Falls Post Register
9780738559681
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
This once-rowdy railroad town completed its metamorphosis into a real city--with paved streets, lights, and a firm foothold on law and order--only after decades of struggle and tumultuous, sweeping social change. In the middle of the fray were three distinctly different newspapers, which often took opposing sides, acting as both contestants and self-appointed referees. The Register, with its dapper editor, William Wheeler, at the helm, was an upright proponent of Republican principles and agricultural expansion. The feisty, financially unstable Times was usually a Democratic Party organ and prone to fighting lost causes. The Daily Post, a brash newcomer arriving in 1905, challenged the establishment with a progressive, pro-labor outlook. All eventually combined to become the independent and still locally owned Post Register.
Kuna
9780738595405
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Kuna owes its existence to an accident of geography. People settled in it in the mid-19th century based on its location near the Snake River, populated it due to mining south of the area, and built a railroad station because it was easier to do so there than near Boise. The Snake River Canyon itself was carved by a prehistoric flood. That close relationship to the earth still continues. Even the school sports teams have a geographic connection: they are known as the Kavemen, named after the Kuna Cave, a lava tube south of town. Today, Kuna is the gateway city to the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, and in recent years, it was the fastest-growing city in Idaho.
KIDO
9780738595115
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
The origins of KIDO date back to 1920 and the experimental radio station 7YA at Boise High School. In 1922, chemistry teacher Harry Redeker was granted a limited-commercial license and the call letters KFAU. Redeker left the school in 1927, and in 1928, the Boise Independent School District sold KFAU to Frank L. Hill and C.G. Phillips, who changed the station's call letters to KIDO. Over the next 30 years, "Kiddo" Phillips and his wife, Georgia, achieved many "firsts" in Idaho broadcasting, including securing NBC as the state's first network affiliation. In 1942, Curt G. Phillips suddenly passed away. Georgia remarried and became Georgia Davidson, going on to build KIDO-FM and KIDO-TV, which were both among the first in the state. In 1959, she sold KIDO Radio to William E. Boeing Jr. of Seattle, who owned KIDO for the next 17 years. It is this period of KIDO's rich history, from 1920 to 1976, that this book will cover.
Hailey
9780738588995
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
When Hailey was founded in 1881, it was one of many boomtowns that sprang up as a result of the lead-silver rush in the northwestern United States. The city was named for John Hailey, a successful entrepreneur who operated a freight hauling business before the railroad reached the Wood River Valley. The new town's strategic location--in proximity to surrounding, rich lead-silver deposits and at the junction of the Wood River and Croy and Quigley Canyons--allowed Hailey to become a bustling center of commerce and mining. Over the years, Hailey grew and changed with the rise and fall of the local mining and sheepherding industries. In recent years, Hailey has reinvented itself yet again, with tourism as the mainstay of the local economy. More than 130 years after its founding, Hailey remains a vibrant and energetic community in the heart of the Wood River Valley.
Meridian
9780738580128
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Eight miles west of Idaho's capital city, Boise, the first settlers in what became Meridian found only arid land, sagebrush, and jackrabbits. The lone tree in the area was another 8 miles west in what became Nampa. Originally called Hunter, after a railroad superintendent, Meridian was initially a railway postal drop where workers tossed and hooked mailbags as the train passed through before the arrival of passenger service. By 1893, residents called the village Meridian, after the north-south prime meridian running through Meridian Road. In 1903, the village incorporated but still had a population of only a few hundred with grocery and harness shops and more churches than saloons. Village merchants and residents experienced orchard and dairy/creamery eras that ended in, respectively, the 1940s and 1970. Meridian became a city in the 1940s but 50 years later had a population of only 10,000. That number quadrupled over the next decade and today has nearly doubled again to around 80,000, as Meridian has evolved into the transportation and commercial hub of the Treasure Valley, especially in electronics and health care.
Owyhee County
9781467133098
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
The sprawling high desert wilderness of southwestern Idaho was virtually unknown to whites in 1863, when Mike Jordan and a band of placer miners dipped their pans into the creek that bears his name and found gold. The electrifying news spread, and the people came. Towns sprang up overnight on the mountaintops. Some disappeared almost as quickly as they had appeared. "Men needed to work the mines!" cried Idaho's newspapers. The word went out, and the miners came from Nevada, California, Colorado, and across the West. Soon the great mines of War Eagle Mountain rivaled Nevada's fabled Comstock Lode. With the exception of Silver City, one of America's largest intact ghost towns, the boomtowns, as well as the mines, are gone; however, descendants of the miners remain. Owyhee County is the size of Delaware and Connecticut combined--7,679 square miles--with a population of only 11,500. It is a rarely visited land of few roads and fewer people, sagebrush desert, deep basalt canyons, romantic vistas, and mysterious mountains that still hide their gold and silver.
The Harrison Area
9780738574486
Regular price
$24.99
Sale price
$17.49
Save 30%
Harrison dates to 1891, during the exciting days of the Northwest's expansion. The area's forests were full of old growth pine, fir, and cedar. Lakes and rivers provided transportation. Logging camps, sawmills, homesteads, and towns were springing up. Harrison was such a town, growing from a squatter homestead to a bustling city of 2,000 with stores, hotels, saloons, and churches in 12 short years. Mills lined the waterfront vying for space with the railroad and steamship docks. The boom did not last, but its legacy is a small, proud, picturesque city on the shore of beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene.
