Idaho Trivia & Tidbits - Page 3

Looking for Idaho trivia? Try our list Idaho little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—In 1948, two deer hunters discovered an opal deposit near Spencer (pop. 38). Today, the Spencer Opal Mines are open on special “digging” days from May through August so visitors can dig for the gemstone themselves. The opals were formed when water flowing through rock formations deposited silica solutions into pockets.

first appeared: 6/1/2008

—On May 30, 1923, Elise Gardner unveiled a statue of a World War I soldier in St. Anthony in Fremont County (pop. 11,819) to honor local men who fought during the war. Named “The Doughboy” after the moniker for American infantrymen at the time, the statue was created by sculptor Avard Fairbanks and sets on a lava rock base.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

Carlos Moon settled in the St. Anthony area in 1890 and named it for its resemblance to St. Anthony Falls in Minnesota. In 1893, Fremont County was created—then covering the areas that today are Clark, Fremont, Jefferson, Madison and Teton counties—and St. Anthony was named the county seat. Two years later, Moon deeded his land to Frank Ross, who filed the town site plat.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

—On Nov. 6, 2007, Wes Case of Ashton (pop. 1,129) caught the state’s largest brown trout on record when he reeled in a 27.3-pound, 37-inch fish from nearby Ashton Reservoir using an 8-pound test line. The reservoir is located along the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. The previous record brown trout was caught in 1981 on the South Fork of the Snake River.

first appeared: 5/4/2008

—Known for the quality of its seed potatoes, Ashton (pop. 1,129), a gateway to Yellowstone National Park, was officially founded in 1906. The town was named for William Ashton, chief engineer for the Oregon Short Line Railroad. When the railroad arrived on Feb. 14, 1906, residents greeted it with a huge party.

first appeared: 3/9/2008

—Dawn Wells—made famous by her castaway character Mary Ann Summers on television’s Gilligan’s Island—went on to found the Idaho Film and Television Institute in Driggs (pop. 1,100), which offers classes and workshops in acting, filmmaking, broadcasting and production. Wells also has established the Wishing Wells line of clothing, which is designed for people with physical disabilities.

first appeared: 2/24/2008

—Established in the early 1900s and once a retreat for members of the Harriman railroading family and the Guggenheim copper family, the Railroad Ranch near Island Park (pop. 215) was for decades a working cattle ranch and private hunting reserve. The ranch was given to the state in 1977, becoming Harriman State Park, and today it’s a wildlife sanctuary that also preserves the ranch’s historic buildings.

first appeared: 2/10/2008

More than 20 public benches—in shapes that include geese, a fiddlehead, a skateboard, pillows and more—create an artistic display known as “Art You Can Sit On” in downtown Idaho Falls (pop. 50,730). The first benches were unveiled in September 2005 as a project of the Idaho Falls Arts Council, the Idaho Falls Historic Downtown Foundation, and the city’s parks and recreation department.

first appeared: 2/10/2008

—The Dog Bark Park Inn is a bed-and-breakfast inn located in Cottonwood (pop. 944) that’s shaped like a giant beagle. Guests enter the beagle’s body through a second-story outdoor deck to find the main sleeping area; upstairs in the dog’s head, there’s additional sleeping space, plus a small reading nook in the muzzle. The beagle is known as “Sweet Willy.”

first appeared: 1/27/2008

—The state government established a sister-state relationship with the state of Jalisco in Mexico in 1996 to foster industry, trade and cultural exchanges, and maintains a trade office in Guadalajara, Jalisco’s capital. Idaho also has sister-state relationships with Shanxi Province in the People’s Republic of China, Chungcheongbuk-do Province in South Korea and Taiwan Province in Taiwan.

first appeared: 1/13/2008

—Visitor education about North America’s animals is a key part of the experience at Yellowstone Bear World, near Rexburg (pop. 17,257). The drive-through wildlife park allows visitors to see black bears, grizzly bears and gray wolves in open-range areas from the safety of their vehicles. The park is open from spring through fall.

first appeared: 12/30/2007

—Educator-astronaut Barbara Morgan thrilled 18 Idaho students at the Discovery Center of Idaho in Boise on Aug. 14 when she and other astronauts answered their questions from aboard the space shuttle orbiting the Earth and demonstrated how liquids in zero gravity form blobs that can be drunk without a straw. Morgan spent much of her teaching career in McCall (pop. 2,084).

first appeared: 12/2/2007

—A new “zipline” tour opened this year at Tamarack Resort, near Donnelly (pop. 138), providing thrills along with great views of the surrounding Payette River Mountains. The attraction features zipline cables up to 875 feet long that are strung between trees at heights of up to 200 feet; participants hook on with safety gear and glide along each cable.

first appeared: 11/18/2007

—The Bruneau hot springsnail is found only in hot springs along a five-mile section of the Bruneau River and its tributaries in Owyhee County (pop. 10,644). The tiny snail, which can live in water temperatures of nearly 100 degrees, was discovered in 1952 and officially confirmed as endangered in 1998, following a legal dispute over its protection.

first appeared: 11/4/2007

—In the 1880s, the boomtown of Shoshone (pop. 1,398) hauled ice for its saloons and restaurants from the nearby Shoshone Ice Caves—even during the heat of summer. The caves actually are an underground lava tube about 1,000 feet long and 8 to 30 feet wide, where air currents create temperatures cold enough year-round to prevent ice formed during the winter from melting.

first appeared: 10/21/2007

—More than 840,000 Idaho Lottery tickets were sold on July 19, 1989, the first day of sales for the state lottery, the founding of which was approved by 51 percent of Idaho voters in November 1988. Between 1990 and 2006, the Idaho Lottery has paid more than $333 million to public schools and a fund that supports state buildings, including colleges and universities.

first appeared: 10/7/2007

—Hawaii-based Hoku Materials has broken ground on a new manufacturing plant in Pocatello (pop. 51,466) that will produce 2,000 metric tons of polysilicon—the key material used in most solar power systems—each year. The plant, which will employ some 200 people, is expected to be complete next year at a cost of more than $220 million, with product shipments to companies such as Sanyo beginning in 2009.

first appeared: 9/30/2007

Located at Bruneau Dunes State Park near Mountain Home (pop. 11,143), the Bruneau Dunes Observatory houses one of the largest publicly accessible telescopes in the West—a 25-inch diameter Obsession—in a building that rotates 360 degrees on a track that’s 30 feet in diameter. The location’s dry desert air and distance from city lights make it ideal for star viewing.

first appeared: 9/30/2007

—Covering 1,869 square miles, Bonneville County was established in 1911, and was named for Capt. B.L.E. Bonneville of the U.S. Army, who explored the Snake River area in the 1830s. Idaho Falls (pop. 50,730), the county seat, was founded as a settlement called Eagle Rock on the Snake River in the mid-1860s, but changed its name in the early 1890s.

first appeared: 9/9/2007

—Although the Emmett Ferret Shelter is located in Emmett (pop. 5,490), the nonprofit, no-kill shelter rescues ferrets from many areas of Idaho and even farther afield, including Oregon. Founded in 2001, the organization cares for unwanted ferrets, finding adoptive or foster homes for the animals and offering supplies and advice for pet owners. The shelter also has a branch in Moscow (pop. 21,291).

first appeared: 8/26/2007

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