In the fall of 1907 State Engineer D.W. Ross and other officials suddenly took note of the fact that the Southside pumping project was in danger of losing its water right. Idaho law stated that a person or organization holding… Read More >

John Richard “Jack” Simplot, born in Dubuque, Iowa, January 4, 1909, was only a year old when he arrived with his family in Burley.  In about 1923, when Jack Simplot was fourteen years old, he graduated from the eighth grade,… Read More >

By 1942 the United States needed places to house German and Italian prisoners. Government officials  decided to construct prisoner-of-war camps in rural areas so that the prisoners could provide manual labor to local farms. One camp was located about four… Read More >

“Anyone living in the United States during the mid-twentieth century would have heard about the African adventures of Tarzan. From the time the first story, ‘Tarzan of the Apes,’ was published in 1912 until the movie, ‘Tarzan and the Jungle… Read More >

Grains and hay were the main crops on the Minidoka Project, as they were in other parts of Cassia County. In 1915 the alfalfa crop was nearly 40 percent of the value of all crops that were raised…   But Minidoka… Read More >

Japanese-Americans from Washington and Oregon were sent to a center in Idaho. Officially named the Minidoka Relocation Center—a confusing name since it was located in Jerome County and not in Minidoka County—it was locally known as the Hunt Camp.* The… Read More >

In 1872 a twenty-three-year-old plant breeder named Luther Burbank found a single seed ball growing on the vine of one of his Early Rose potatoes. Because Burbank had tried without success to produce an improved potato, he watched the seed… Read More >

Synopsis of the book “A Flood Cannot Happen Here”, written by the book’s author, Kathleen Hedberg Most people in Cassia County were not worried about a flood that spring of 1984.  But with a snow pack in January that was… Read More >

For many years the old Y-Dell Bowling Alley operated at the intersection of present-day Highways 30 and 24 on Burley’s east side.  The Y-Dell was owned and operated by Clive Holland and later, his son Marty.  Generations of locals enjoyed… Read More >