One block west from this site, in 1894, the pioneers of this area erected a school house built of red brick made and kilned by them. It was one room, twenty-five by forty feet. Cuss Erickson laid the brick, first teachers were Edith Townsend and . . . — — Map (db m124584) HM
In 1879, Mormon farmers from Utah settled Chesterfield, 16 miles north of here.
Based on Joseph Smith's Zion Plat, Chesterfield was laid out on an orderly grid of large blocks separated by wide streets with the Meeting House on the highest . . . — — Map (db m106773) HM
Mormon pioneers settled this area along the Oregon Trail in the 1880s. The town was named Chesterfield because it reminded some of the countryside around Chesterfield, England, and to honor the settlement's founder, Chester Call.
A traditional . . . — — Map (db m124578) HM
In the summer of 1849, the California Gold Rush was diverted this way in search of a more direct route to the mines.
Stampeding 49'ers would try anything to save miles and time in their rush for California's gold: the regular Oregon and . . . — — Map (db m106774) HM
This area, known as Ten Mile Sterrett and Ivins, was opened for homesteading in 1880. Emigrants from Utah and Iceland transformed sagebrush lands to productive livestock farms. They befriended the roaming Indians and Oregon Trail travelers. Jared . . . — — Map (db m140294) HM
After the arrival of the first settlers of Chesterfield in 1875, covered wagon trains continued to use the Old Oregon Traill of 1846 which passed this point. Tired discouraged and ill, travelers arrived here from early spring to late autumn. Local . . . — — Map (db m124580) HM
The Oregon Trail was not blazed by the first wagon train of emigrants who set out on the journey in 1841. They were following pathways discovered and described by explorers, and mountain men in the early 1800s - pathways traveled for countless years . . . — — Map (db m124650) HM
In 1880, several Latter-Day Saint families settled in this valley of the Portneuf, naming the area Chesterfield. Nov. 27, 1883, a branch of the Church was organized with Judson A. Tolman presiding Elder. Labor was donated, lumber came from nearby . . . — — Map (db m124581) HM
Chesterfield
Chesterfield established in 1879, is an early Mormon settlement on the Oregon Trail.
The town features 23 historic brick buildings built between 1884 and 1904, including the old Chesterfield store.
Chesterfield is on the . . . — — Map (db m109912) HM
Bear River has its source in lakes on the north slope of Hayden Peak, 12,485 feet in elevation, near the western limit of Utah's high Uintas. The horseshoe shaped river follows a course 500 miles long, but its mouth is only 90 miles from its source. . . . — — Map (db m140343) HM
The Bidwell-Bartleson Party
In 1841, John Bidwell and John Bartleson became the first Americans emigrants to undertake a wagon crossing from Missouri to California.
Although Oregon was the primary destination of early westward-bound . . . — — Map (db m140278) HM
Blocked by lava eruptions at least 140,000 years ago, the Bear River was diverted from draining into the Snake River system.
It was forced to drain southward into what were then lakes Thatcher and Bonneville and is now the Great Salt Lake.
. . . — — Map (db m109914) HM
Two miles east is located the dam and headworks of the canal system. Incorporation was effected Feb. 4, 1899 for the purpose of irrigating this valley. First filing on Bear River to supply the canal was Mar. 4, 1897. To perfect the right it was . . . — — Map (db m140280) HM
Geological processes created the complex landscape of southeastern Idaho and eventually determined the routes covered wagons would take along the Oregon Trail. In their journals, trail emigrants often wrote something about the two volcanic cinder . . . — — Map (db m140253) HM
Founded by a Dutch pioneer about 1884, Henry thrived as a center for cattle ranchers of the area and the transient sheep operators.
A large sheep-shearing corral was built one mile south of Henry.
It operated about 60 days each year as large . . . — — Map (db m109951) HM
Many Oregon & California bound emigrants mention seeing ten to twelve foot hight white mounds and cones in their diaries and journals while passing through the Soda Springs area in the mid-1800s. Often, one of the first natural curiosities that . . . — — Map (db m106251) HM
The first Mormon emigrants arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and immediately began laying the groundwork for the small settlement that would become Salt Lake City. Church President Brigham Young however, had a much grander vision for his . . . — — Map (db m35469) HM
Claiming to have received "revelations" to warn Mormon leader Brigham Young that he was "wandering from the right course," a Welshman named Joseph Morris came under rebuke in 1862 for speaking out against Mormon doctrines. Growing hostilities . . . — — Map (db m106709) HM
Until about 28,000 years ago, Bear River used to flow northwest from here through Portneuf Canyon into Snake River.
Then these lava eruption blocked that route, diverting Bear River south into what now is Salt Lake. At that time a large . . . — — Map (db m106728) HM
On this site in 1870, the first house in Soda Springs, Uppertown was built under the direction of John Walmsley. It was a one room log cabin twenty-two by eighteen feet, with floor, windows, and shingle roof, known as the Brigham Young Summer Home. . . . — — Map (db m35466) HM
Col. P.E. Connor set up the old town of Soda Springs, now mostly flooded, and an adjacent army post near here May 20, 1863.
The gold rush to Idaho had greatly increased traffic on the Oregon Trail, and the post was needed to protect travelers . . . — — Map (db m105972) HM
The magnet of gold
In 1870, high in the remote Caribou Range of the middle Rocky Mountains, in southeastern Idaho, gold was discovered by intrepid gold-seekers. Tales of gold and wealth drew thousands to the West during the mid-19th century . . . — — Map (db m106213) HM
Noticeable for their distinct shapes, China Hat and nearby China Cap are rhyolite domes that intruded and pierced the basalt of the Blackfoot Lava Field. The basaltic phase of this volcanic province was active in middle Pleistocene around 500,000 . . . — — Map (db m105966) HM
Floods of emigrants, gold seekers, and Mormon settlers entering the homeland of the Shoshone and Bannock people from the mid-1840s to early 1860s gave rise to conflict and often violent encounters. Despite Mormon effort to supply them with food, . . . — — Map (db m106723) HM
In 1958, Dr. Evan and Lois Kackley donated the Yellowstone Coach to the City of Soda Springs. According to Dr. Kackley's written letters to the city council he stated, "This particular coach was used to carry Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and the . . . — — Map (db m106694) HM
Southeast Idaho is a major phosphate-producing region and phosphate mining has been an important industry here since the turn of the 20th century.
1920s world-wide demand for metals and chemicals
During the 1920s, world-wide demand for . . . — — Map (db m106697) HM
Came to Soda Springs in 1898,
3 day out of Medical School at
the University of Tennessee.
People seeking his expertise came
from all over the United States.
His patients kept the hotels in
Soda Springs filled.
Except for . . . — — Map (db m124485) HM
This monument, featuring a bust of Father Pierre De Smet, has four plaques around it. They are, left to right (clockwise):
Westward Ho!
Pierre-Jean De Smet (1801-1873) traveled to America as a young man in 1821, from what . . . — — Map (db m106775) HM
In many respects, emigrants Niels Anderson and Mary Christoffersen seem like typical young Idaho pioneers of the 1860s. Niels, 28 years old, and Mary, barely 16, were wed by a Justice of the Peace at an open-air ceremony at Camp Connor on July 30, . . . — — Map (db m106726) HM
For over two decades (1834-1856), fur trappers and Oregon Trail wagon trains passed by the doors of this adobe fort. Nathaniel Wyeth, an ambitious Bostonian, built the post in 1834 but soon sold his holdings to the Hudson's Bay Company, whose staff . . . — — Map (db m106849) HM
U.S.A. Cavalry Infantry
53 families and others
Founded Soda Springs
Built fort to protect emigrants
County seat Oneida County
1864 ---- 1867 — — Map (db m124492) HM
George and Leah were parents of eleven children. In early November, 1884 George and Leah lost four of their five young daughters, in a two week period, to a terrible diphtheria epidemic. Leah did not like the Pioneer Cemetery east of town because of . . . — — Map (db m106633) HM
On February 7, 1951, the State of Idaho Department of Civil Defense set up the GOC, a Citizen Volunteer Auxiliary with the United States Air Force.
In October, 1951, Soda Springs and Caribou County Ground Observers met with Major T.A. Burda, Air . . . — — Map (db m106250) HM
The United States Government was afraid an enemy had the ability to attack our interior cities and rural areas in strong force with little or no warning.
In March 1954, a letter from N.F. Twining, Chief of Staff of the United States Air . . . — — Map (db m106218) HM
The Ground Observer Corps (GOC) was a series of Civil Defense programs in the United States to protect against air attack. Its function was to supplement the radar warning network by visually searching the skies with naked eye and binoculars for . . . — — Map (db m106219) HM
Towering 1200 feet above the waters of Bear River is Sheep Rock, a prominent landmark described in emigrant diaries and journals as they traveled west on the Oregon and California trails. Trapper and mountain men, in the early 1830s, indicate that a . . . — — Map (db m106737) HM
Free clear sparkling soda water still is available in a beautiful Soda Springs city park located 2 miles from here.
A prime attraction for more than 160 years, soda water from these springs was marketed nationally after rail service . . . — — Map (db m106256) HM
The route of US 30 traces its origin to the early 1900s. Until that time, the current route was but a well-traveled wagon road parallel with the Oregon Short Line railroad. In the spring of 1903, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson became the first person . . . — — Map (db m106771) HM
Native Americans traveled and camped in the Soda Springs area for centuries before emigrants traveled the Oregon Trail.
Sheep Rock (Soda Point) marked the junction of the main route of the Oregon-California Trail and the Hudspeth Cutoff and was . . . — — Map (db m106850) HM
Westward-bound emigrants entered Idaho after crossing Thomas Fork Valley. They soon encountered the climb and decent of Big Hill, witnessed nature's curiosities at Soda Springs, and discovered willing traders at Fort Hall.
In 1843 wagons first . . . — — Map (db m106845) HM
In 1840, John Bidwell began to assemble emigrants from Missouri to open a road to California; and a year later, he set out with a party of 69 Pacific Coast pioneers.
When they reached here, August 12, 1841, half of this group decided to go . . . — — Map (db m106729) HM
Excitement and anxiety mounted as emigrants prepared to launch their ox-drawn prairie schooners from St. Joseph and Independence, Missouri - bustling river ports at the edge of the frontier in the 1840s. To them, the great, gray ribbon of the . . . — — Map (db m106710) HM
Only memories remain...
In 1920, the ambitious Anaconda Copper Mining Company built the community of Conda to house its phosphate miners and their families. About 300 people resided in Conda during the mining heyday. The town closed in . . . — — Map (db m106695) HM
They were born in Denmark; joined the Mormons there. In 1857 Mrs. Anderson arrived at Burlington, Iowa; delayed there until 1859 on account of Johnston's Army, having to be sent to Utah. That year she walked nearly all the way to Salt Lake City. In . . . — — Map (db m124649) HM
The story of the American West is not simply a tale of pioneer courage and vision or of prairie schooners swaying westward to the strains of heroic music. Rather, it is a complex story of plots and sub plots, of romance and religion, of politics and . . . — — Map (db m106255) HM
This spot of ground known as the Pioneer Cedar Cemetery was used from the time of the founding of Soda Springs "Upper Town" in 1871 to 1906. It contains over 42 marked graves and as many whose identification are unknown. Each plot was selected by . . . — — Map (db m140251) HM
As many as 350,000 people and tens of thousands of covered wagons traveled the Oregon Trail between 1840 and 1870. Countless feet, hooves, and iron-rimmed wheels cut and compacted the ground, leaving long-lasting traces still visible on many western . . . — — Map (db m124577) HM
Lava eruptions west of Sheep Rock at least 140,000 years ago blocked the Bear River from draining into the Snake River system. Instead, the Bear was forced to drain into what was then Lakes Thatcher and Bonneville to the south. The Bear River's . . . — — Map (db m106847) HM
In this area are a group of springs famous to Oregon Trail travelers, most of whom stopped to try the "acid taste and effervessing gasses" of the waters.
Earlier, fur traders often -- less elegantly -- called the place "Beer Springs" after . . . — — Map (db m105967) HM
This miniature locomotive played an integral part in the history of Caribou County. When the dam at Alexander Reservoir was built in 1924, it hauled supplies to the dam. Trapped by rising water, the locomotive was abandoned. In 1976 the reservoir . . . — — Map (db m106700) HM
(left panel:)
Tour Our National Byways
Click on the Tour Our National Byways photograph to enlarge it and view the local byway routes. (center panel:)
The springs of Soda Springs - indeed a . . . — — Map (db m106214) HM
When they left the main trail leading to Fort Hall, emigrants heading to California thought that Hudspeth's Cutoff would save them considerable time and miles in the race to the gold fields. To their surprise, they were still in Idaho's Raft River . . . — — Map (db m106772) HM
This is an east-west travel corridor of the earliest emigrant trails that continued even after the arrival of railroads and highways. Early explorers, such as John Fremont, Jedediah Smith, Osborne Russell, and missionary Narcissi Whitman were among . . . — — Map (db m106846) HM
The gently sloping mound around the geyser is travertine. The stone often develops into flights of pools enclosed within little dams.
These dams form through a mix of water and carbon dioxide which makes carbonic acid, and dissolved calcium . . . — — Map (db m109952) HM
This monument marks the grave of an immigrant family, father, mother , and five children, massacred on Little Spring Creek one half mile south of this spot, buried in their own wagon box by trappers and immigrants led by George W. Goodheart. — — Map (db m106254) HM
Oregon Trail Memorial
Erected 1931
Restored 1978
Caribou County 4H Builders Club
In honor of William Henry Harrison of Massachusetts who lost his life on the Oregon Trail about 1850.
Erected by his niece Mrs. Alura F. . . . — — Map (db m106732) HM
Rising to an elevation of more than 9,800 feet, Cariboo Mountain -- visible north of here -- has two of Idaho's highest gold camps.
Jesse "Cariboo Jack" Fairchild discovered gold high on Cariboo Mountain in August, 1870, and a mining rush . . . — — Map (db m105965) HM
(left panel:)
Settling Grays Lake Valley
With determination and spirit
Cattle, sheep and crops
At first cattlemen found the luxurious waist-high grass of Grays Lake Valley perfect for raising cattle. The . . . — — Map (db m106160) HM
Discovered this valley in 1818 or 1819 while hunting beaver for Donald MacKenzie's Northwest Company trappers.
An Iroquois leader -- he also explored Grey's River nearby in Wyoming. Aside from his trapping skills, he was noted for his unusual . . . — — Map (db m105964) HM
Caribou Mountain rises 9,800 feet with alpine snowfields feeding Tincup Creek, a tributary to the South Fork of the Snake River. Placer gold discoveries high on the mountain in 1871 led to a gold rush that lasted for two decades. In the 1880s sheep . . . — — Map (db m105963) HM
