Mountain Home, Idaho

Back in the 1840's, there was a campground on the Oregon Trail about 8 miles east of present-day Mountain Home. Then came the gold rush in the 1860's and the site became Rattlesnake Station, a crossroads where the Overland Stage Line met the freight route going north through the Toll Gate to the Rocky Bar and Atlanta gold camps. Mountain Home was the name given the post office at Rattlesnake Station.

The proprietor of Rattlesnake Station was one Commodore Jackson. When the surveyors for the Oregon Short Line Railroad laid out that route, Jackson filed a desert claim on 320 acres parallel to the future tracks. Then he surveyed and platted the townsite of Mountain Home. When the Oregon Short Line Railroad was built through here in 1883, Jackson was ready. An itinerant drummer named Tutwiler had set up a tent and whiskey barrel on Jackson's land near the survey stakes. As the route was being graded and tracks were being laid, he did a good business meeting the needs of the thirsty workers. They named the place Tutville in his honor. In early July, 1883, the first train rolled into Tutville. At that point, Jule Hager, stage agent at Rattlesnake Station and postmaster of Mountain Home decided to pack the post office into a 50-pound soapbox and moved the post office (and the "Mountain Home" name) down to where he could meet the mail at the railroad tracks.

In 1943, the US Army Air Force opened the Mountain Home Air Force Base southwest of the city as a bomber training facility.