We arrived
in Idaho Falls on Friday afternoon. On
the way we passed fields with hay and straw ready to bale or already baled waiting
to be picked up. Most of the farmers use
an automatic loader to pick up the large square bales. Small sunflowers were growing all along the highway, made me smile.
Someone
spent a lot of money to keep those bales covered.
As we got
closer to Idaho Falls we saw lots of lava rock and some really large lava
fields.
Idaho Falls
will be home until Friday.
We spent
Saturday at home doing some cleaning and laundry. On Sunday we drove into town to walk through
the downtown historic district. Many of
the buildings are in great shape and some of them are undergoing restoration. On Sunday the downtown area is pretty much
shut down so we’ll have to come back to see any of the buildings’ interiors.
The City
Building
None of the
information I read stated when this building was originally built. It was mentioned that in 1908 James Milner
needed a place to house his Farmer’s & Merchant’s Bank. He purchased this building, the Turner and
Shane clothing and furniture store.
Renovations then covered the lava and stone building with brick.
Built in
1914, this building was originally a federal building. It now houses attorney offices.
Love the
windows.
The
Bonneville Hotel is currently undergoing a $10 million renovation. The lower floor will be retail shops with one
and two bedroom condos above. The
exterior is supposed to be left the same but the interior will be completely
redone.
B.M. Rogers,
one of Idaho Falls first millionaires often stood where I stood to take this
picture and admired his hotel. Built in
1937, for $300,000, the hotel offered 100 beautifully furnished rooms with
baths for $2.00. Some of the guests have
included President Herbert Hoover, Governor Ronald Reagan and singer Bing
Crosby. It is currently undergoing some
renovation also.
We had lunch
at Jalisco’s Mexican Restaurant across the road from the Snake River Greenbelt
where we will be walking later on.
The reason I
wanted to come to Idaho Falls was to see the waterfalls and they are
awesome. They are created by the
diversion dam for a hydroelectric power project. The original dam was installed in 1909. The current dam was constructed in 1982. This and three other hydroelectric plants
help the city generate approximately 50% of its own electric power needs. The part of the falls we saw today was at
least 3 city blocks long.
Seagulls
were also out enjoying the sunshine.
The
Greenbelt area is 3 miles long.
The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be seen in the background.
This moose
will eventually be moss covered, the process is just starting now.
The bear has
a pretty good moss cover.
There are artistic
benches throughout town of all shapes and sizes.
No comments:
Post a Comment