Pocatello, Idaho

Forbes Magazine rated Pocatello as #20 on their 2007 list of "Best Small Places for Business and Careers." Idaho State University is located in Pocatello, as is the manufacturing facility of ON Semiconductor.

Pocatello was founded during Idaho's gold rush (in the 1870's) on the first railroad line in Idaho. Pocatello was also on the Oregon Trail and was named for Chief Pocatello of the Shoshoni tribe. This area of Idaho had been inhabited by the Shoshoni and Bannock peoples for hundreds of years before the first Europeans arrived in the early 1800's. Just north of present-day Pocatello, an American fur trader named Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth built a trading post named Fort Hall in 1834. The Hudson's Bay Company bought Fort Hall from Wyeth and operated it for several years. Then the post became a major stopping point along the Portneuf branch of the Oregon Trail.

The gold rush in Idaho began in 1860 and brought wave after wave after wave of American settlers into the territory. The Union Pacific Railroad bought the Utah & Northern Railroad in 1877 and then extended that line into Idaho through the Portneuf Canyon. Pocatello Junction was a whistle stop along that line. After the gold rush was over, farmers and ranchers started migrating into the area. The first homes and commercial development began in Pocatello about 1882.