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Idaho Falls’ riverfront tells a story of construction as well as scenery. The falls have changed as the city built generating facilities, recovered from a flood and renewed its equipment. Understanding those changes makes the riverfront more interesting: a view of water also becomes a view of decisions about street lighting, public ownership and rebuilding. The municipal utility’s River Walk history panels offer a useful starting point. Their subjects include the falls, individual p …

A small white flag is the starting point of a story Twin Falls tells about its downtown. On the city’s page for John E. Hayes: A Vision of Tomorrow, surveyor John E. Hayes places that marker at what is now Main and Shoshone in April 1904. The sculpture commemorates Hayes and the forward-looking spirit of that work. It offers a focused way to approach local public art: begin with the person or event being remembered, then ask what the artwork adds. History Spotlight: Three Different Thing …

A city's history can survive in very different forms: a river junction that explains where people met, objects saved after a building disappeared, or a public institution that found a new home. In Lewiston, Idaho, those three threads offer a useful introduction to the community without trying to fit its entire past onto a single timeline. The City of Lewiston places the community in Nez Perce County, at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers. Start with that landscape, then look more …

Pocatello’s history becomes easier to follow when its connections are made specific. A railroad junction brought routes and workers together. An educational institution changed names and responsibilities as it grew. More recent trail projects address how people move beside the Portneuf River. These are three distinct stories, with different kinds of evidence behind them. The city’s official history dates its founding to 1889 and describes the Portneuf Gap south of town as a passage …

A former depot at 18 East Idaho Avenue became a library. The Bank of Meridian at 140 East Idaho Avenue later served as a post office. These changing uses help explain how Meridian grew from a postal stop into a town. Its name has a chronology of its own: the Hunter postal designation, the Meridian town plat and village incorporation mark different stages of the community's beginnings. History Spotlight: Four dates in Meridian's beginnings 1888: the Hunter postal designation begins. 1893: a to …