Aberdeen, Idaho

Aberdeen is located on Idaho Highway 39 on the western side of American Falls Reservoir in Blaine County. Craters of the Moon National Monument is to the west.

This is a dry land farming area that grows lots of potatoes, grains, sugar beets and other agricultural commodities. The University of Idaho founded an agricultural research and extension center here in 1911. The National Small Grains Collection (a collection of native small grains like oat, barley, wheat, rice, triticale and rye) is based in Aberdeen. Their primary purpose is the conservation of natural genetic resources. The samples they collect are analyzed for nutritional content, stress resistance, agronomic merit and other traits. They also distributes seeds from their sample collection to other breeders and researchers around the world. The Aberdeen Plant Materials Center also does research into plant materials, conservation-type plants in particular. They have released more than 40 improved conservation plants over the last 60 years specifically for use in conservation plantings in Oregon, California, Idaho, Utah and Nevada. They also provide technical expertise and leadership in the fight against noxious weeds, the development of vegetative windbreaks, post-wildfire rehabilitation, propagation of native shrubbery and in the on-going improvement of pasturelands, rangelands and wetlands.

Aberdeen was built near the site of the Aberdeen Coal Mine (long since gone out of business). But the settlement took the name of Aberdeen to honor some bankers and other businessmen from Rockford, IL (all from Scotland or of Scotch descent) who were instrumental in selling the bonds needed to refinance the American Falls Canal and Power Company back in the early 1900's.

The early settlers seem to have been a mix of folks from the midwest (Indiana and Illinois in particular) but among them were groups of Mormons and Mennonites. Many families arrived and at first, lived in homes built in Aberdeen by the Aberdeen Townsite Company while they built what they needed on their tracts of land outside of town, got their crops planted and then moved there.

These days, Aberdeen is a peaceful, quiet, low-crime and mostly agrarian community where most folks have known each other for generations now.