Soda Springs is the county seat for Caribou County
Soda Springs is in Caribou County
Caribou County(60) ► ADJACENT TO CARIBOU COUNTY Bannock County(25) ► Bear Lake County(48) ► Bingham County(21) ► Bonneville County(18) ► Franklin County(34) ► Lincoln County, Wyoming(30) ►
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Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
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
On South 3rd Street West near West 3rd Street South, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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 Main Street (U.S. 30), on the right when traveling east.
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
On U.S. 30 near South 3rd Street West, on the left when traveling west.
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
On East 1st Street South near South Main Street, on the right when traveling west.
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
On State Highway 34 near Blackfoot River Road, on the right when traveling west.
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
On South 3rd Street West near West 3rd Street South.
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
On East 2nd Street South (U.S. 30) near South Main Street, on the right when traveling west.
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
On East 2nd Street South (U.S. 30) near South Main Street, on the right when traveling west.
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
On Main Street near East 2nd South (U.S. 30), on the left when traveling south.
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
On West Center Street near South 1st Street West, on the left when traveling west.
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
On South 3rd Street West near West 3rd Street South, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On South Main Street at East 2nd South, on the left when traveling south on South Main Street.
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
Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
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
Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
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
Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
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
Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On East 2nd Street South near South Main Street, on the right when traveling west.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On South 3rd Street West near West 3rd Street South, on the right when traveling south.
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
On East 2nd Street South (U.S. 30) near South Main Street, on the right when traveling west.
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
Near South 1st Street West near West Center Street.
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
Near Pioneer Drive near railroad tracks, on the left when traveling east.
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
Near U.S. 30 near Valley View Drive, on the left when traveling west.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On U.S. 30 near South 3rd Street West, on the left when traveling west.
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
On South Main Street near West Center Street, on the left when traveling south.
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
Near East 1st Street South near South Main Street.
(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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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
Near South 1st Street West near West Center Street.
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
On Soda Point Power Plant Road near Reservoir Road, on the right when traveling south.
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