Pioneer Historic Byway

Pioneer Historic Byway is a 127-mile journey into the history of southeastern Idaho. At the southern end of the Byway is Franklin, the earliest surviving settlement in Idaho. Franklin was first settled by Mormon pioneers in 1860. Over the ensuing years, the Mormons continued to arrive and built many of the stops along the Pioneer Historic Byway. Soda Springs has a captive geyser in town and is near Sheep Rock, that place where the historic California and Oregon Trails really diverged. It was north of here that the Lander Cutoff rejoined the main route of the Oregon Trail (on what is now the Fort Hall Indian Reservation). Preston is home to the Oneida Stake Academy, an impressive 3-story stone structure built to house an early Mormon school. Near Preston, just off the Pioneer Historic Byway is the Bear River Massacre National Historic Site, a place where a unit of the US Army attacked a winter encampment of Shoshones on January 29, 1863 and killed somewhere between 200 and 500 men, women and children. Near the northern end of the Pioneer Historic Byway is Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge, a major stopping-and-resting point along the Pacific Flyway for migratory waterfowl and other birds.

Franklin was originally settled by 13 Mormon families who thought they were still in Utah. In 1872, Federal surveyors came through and discovered that Franklin was 1 mile north of the actual state line. Today, Franklin is home to a well-developed historic district that offers many historic homes and other buildings for the avid "history-and-heritage tourist."

Off the beaten path (but still close by) is the ghost town of Chesterfield. Founded in 1880 along the wheel ruts of the Oregon Trail, Chesterfield grew to about 400 inhabitants before folks were driven out by years of bad weather and bad fortune. A lot of what remains of the town is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Probably the best-preserved structure in Chesterfield is the Chesterfield Meetinghouse, which has been leased to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers for use as a museum. Apparently the original pump organ still works and visitors have been known to try their hand...

Also nearby (and off the beaten path) is Red Rock Pass. Red Rock Pass is what remains today of the ancient natural dam that held back the waters of Lake Bonneville until about 14,500 years ago when rising water levels from Ice Age snowmelt broke through the dam and released much of the lake's water into the Snake River drainage. As Lake Bonneville at the time was more than 1,000' deep and covered some 19,691 square miles, that rush of water took several months to complete and was catastrophic to landscapes downstream from there.