Rexburg, Idaho

Rexburg is the location of Brigham Young University-Idaho. Until 2008, this was the only BYU campus without a temple adjacent to it.

Built in the heart of thousands of years of volcanic activity, Rexburg itself sits on top of a shield volcano. Surrounding the city are numerous spatter cones, volcanic fissures, cinder cones and other shield volcanos. South and west of Rexburg are some large lava fields, the result of open fissure eruptions about 2,000 years ago. Craters of the Moon National Monument is southwest of Rexburg. It's the sediment deposits that were enriched by volcanic activity that have made the area around Rexburg so famous for its large, starch-rich potatoes.

Rexburg is perhaps most famous for the damage the city received when the Teton Dam ruptured in June 1976. The resulting flood left most of the city underwater for several days. The Teton Dam was an earthen dam built by the Bureau of Reclamation that suffered a catastrophic failure as the reservoir behind it was filling for the first time. 11 people and 13,000 head of cattle were killed in the flood as the 270-foot-deep reservoir was emptied within 6 hours of the initial breach.

Rexburg is also famous for the strong conservative bent of most of the area's voters. At times, Rexburg has been referred to as the "reddest place in America" with Republicans collecting between 60% and 90%+ of the votes cast since 1980.