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It is becoming a ghost town.
Is that movie, "The Hills have eyes" similiar to that other than wherever that movie was filmed it was more mountainous territory.
I never saw the movie, so I can't say.
Atomic City lies along Hwy.20, so it's easy to find, but to tell the truth, I think the last time I stopped there must have been 50 years ago or more. Arco is just over the hill, and it's always been a much better place to stop for gas, food, or a little relaxation over a beer in a saloon.
Atomic City sprung up suddenly, around 1951, probably as a speculative investment in hopes of catching income from all the folks who work at the INL.
Because Arco is so nearby, and because Idaho Falls was always the home for the workers, Atomic City never caught on. All it ever had was a gas station and a bar, along with a few lonely houses.
It lies in a spot that is quite exposed. So it's higher, dryer, windier and colder there than it is in more sheltered Arco where the nearby mountains protect the town from nature's extremes.
It was never a good place to plant a town from the beginning.
I don't know, but if anything, I suspect Atomic City could be snaky.
There are a lot of rattlesnakes living in spots throughout the Arco desert, and they tend to like to live around a house out there, as a house attracts rodents.
I have lots of rattlesnake stories I could tell about them and the Arco desert- my family used to winter sheep bands out there before the INL arrived and fenced the range off. Snakes and jackrabbits... thousands of them lived in the Arco desert. The last jackrabbit infestation was ca. 1981.
Last edited by banjomike; 06-28-2020 at 11:17 PM..
I never saw the movie, so I can't say.
Atomic City lies along Hwy.20, so it's easy to find, but to tell the truth, I think the last time I stopped there must have been 50 years ago or more. Arco is just over the hill, and it's always been a much better place to stop for gas, food, or a little relaxation over a beer in a saloon.
Atomic City sprung up suddenly, around 1951, probably as a speculative investment in hopes of catching income from all the folks who work at the INL.
Because Arco is so nearby, and because Idaho Falls was always the home for the workers, Atomic City never caught on. All it ever had was a gas station and a bar, along with a few lonely houses.
It lies in a spot that is quite exposed. So it's higher, dryer, windier and colder there than it is in more sheltered Arco where the nearby mountains protect the town from nature's extremes.
It was never a good place to plant a town from the beginning.
I don't know, but if anything, I suspect Atomic City could be snaky.
There are a lot of rattlesnakes living in spots throughout the Arco desert, and they tend to like to live around a house out there, as a house attracts rodents.
I have lots of rattlesnake stories I could tell about them and the Arco desert- my family used to winter sheep bands out there before the INL arrived and fenced the range off. Snakes and jackrabbits... thousands of them lived in the Arco desert. The last jackrabbit infestation was ca. 1981.
Arco sounds like a gasoline station we have here. It is a food stop combo gas station with the lowest prices on fuel (fuel can be low in cost like Costco Gasoline station). I would think that Atomic City would become a tourist attraction as it is part of history and disaster. Sounds like Atomic City is becoming a ghost town. Or is it even safe to live there now / visit there because of what happened there?
Don't like snakes. Better stock up on snake shot and wear boots if you go through Arco / live there?
Arco sounds like a gasoline station we have here. It is a food stop combo gas station with the lowest prices on fuel (fuel can be low in cost like Costco Gasoline station). I would think that Atomic City would become a tourist attraction as it is part of history and disaster. Sounds like Atomic City is becoming a ghost town. Or is it even safe to live there now / visit there because of what happened there?
Don't like snakes. Better stock up on snake shot and wear boots if you go through Arco / live there?
Yup. But Arco, Idaho got its name before the gasoline company ever existed. It was founded as a rail spur for the local ranches and farms, and has survived as a dinky little service city for the local area.
There are so few folks who live close to 'the lavas', the roughest part of the Arco desert, it doesn't take a very large town to supply them. Arco has the high school and the other common stuff, and is the county seat of Butte county.
Who knows what the speculators thought Atomic City was supposed to be? It's across the highway from one of the INL's main entrances.
Tourism probably paid no part in the location, as there's a much prettier spot just down the road that's close to the Lost River that would have been better. The state put a rest-stop there many years ago, and it's used year-round.
Rattlesnakes are natives; we have 2 different species of them here. Rattlers don't like towns, and they avoid humans in general. Unless you really surprise them, they rattle a lot faster than they strike, so they give anyone plenty of advance notice you can hear, even if you can't see the snake.
Wearing boots in the lavas is mandatory. A person would have to be painless and crazy to walk in the desert bare-footed, and a pair of flip-flops would be shredded in less than an hour.
Anywhere there is a lot of pavement around, you won't ever see them, so any town is safe. Out in the wilderness, the rattlers stay in lower elevations and spend almost all their time in mixed shade/sun spots, such as found on sagebrush flats. They also concentrate around the denning areas of ground squirrels and other ground rodents.
On farmland, the snakes live in the waste ground spots that are too odd-shaped or something to plant, and then will venture into the cropland at night to hunt mice, voles and other rodents living in the fields.
So the chances of seeing a rattler in a wheat field is greater than in a city. But not a potato field, because mice don't eat spuds, and the potatoes are irrigated, which floods rodent holes.
The largest rattler I ever encountered was moving out of some sagebrush across a 2-lane paved county road, up in the foothills east of Idaho Falls. He was headed to the wheat field across the road, and I spotted him from about a half-mile away.
I stopped to watch him (and to help save his life). When completely out on the road, he appeared to be very close to 7 ft. long, and at the middle was almost as big as my calf.
A snake that big has to be at least 60-70 years old.
He was magnificent, had probably lived there all his life, had sired hundreds that didn't survive as long, and must have been the Terrible God for every rodent colony for miles around.
He knew I was there, but he knew I wouldn't run over him. Like a King, he took his regal time crossing that road.
Just as he disappeared on the other side, my bro and our Dad came up, coming from the other direction. They stopped to see why I had stopped. Neither of them saw the snake. I never saw him again either.
I like to think he's still out there. If he is, he'd be bumping 100 now, but legend says they can live that long.
Snakes don't get that big unless they're smart. The smart ones learn young not to mess with people.
And that's why I'm more afraid of a rattler that's 3 inches long than one that's 3 feet. The little ones will kill you just as fast- their poison is as strong- and they're a lot harder to spot.
Yup. But Arco, Idaho got its name before the gasoline company ever existed. It was founded as a rail spur for the local ranches and farms, and has survived as a dinky little service city for the local area.
Chicken or the egg? Arco got its start as a stage station built in 1887 and at the time was called, "Root Hog". Arco the gas company, which was called Atlantic Richfield in my young driving days got its start as the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company in 1866.
source: Wikipedia
Interesting reading, about both.
p.s. Once upon a time, I had a VW bus camper and had it serviced by an ol' Yugoslav mechanic in a nearby town where I lived at the time. When he found out that I used Arco gas in the bus, he really came down on me hard. I was young and starving. Arco did, and does, have the least expensive gasoline, (outside Costco). I have not purchased Arco since. This was sometime in the late 80's.
Chicken or the egg? Arco got its start as a stage station built in 1887 and at the time was called, "Root Hog". Arco the gas company, which was called Atlantic Richfield in my young driving days got its start as the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company in 1866.
source: Wikipedia
Interesting reading, about both.
p.s. Once upon a time, I had a VW bus camper and had it serviced by an ol' Yugoslav mechanic in a nearby town where I lived at the time. When he found out that I used Arco gas in the bus, he really came down on me hard. I was young and starving. Arco did, and does, have the least expensive gasoline, (outside Costco). I have not purchased Arco since. This was sometime in the late 80's.
Thanks for that info. I will try to find this in Wikipedia for some interesting history behind all of this.
Chicken or the egg? Arco got its start as a stage station built in 1887 and at the time was called, "Root Hog". Arco the gas company, which was called Atlantic Richfield in my young driving days got its start as the Atlantic Petroleum Storage Company in 1866.
source: Wikipedia
Interesting reading, about both.
p.s. Once upon a time, I had a VW bus camper and had it serviced by an ol' Yugoslav mechanic in a nearby town where I lived at the time. When he found out that I used Arco gas in the bus, he really came down on me hard. I was young and starving. Arco did, and does, have the least expensive gasoline, (outside Costco). I have not purchased Arco since. This was sometime in the late 80's.
Yup.
Name association all depends on what a person knows.
For years, whenever I heard UConn mentioned on the radio or news, I instantly thought of Ucon, another little old railroad farm town a few miles from Idaho Falls.
I never knew that about Arco gasoline. I've seen some of their stations, but I've never stopped at one that I can recall.
I didn't know much about Arco Idaho's early history, either, only that it had been there for a very long time.
A person can spot the age of a town here looking at the materials that were used to build the biggest buildings a lot of times. Arco's biggest are all constructed out of the local rock and lava, as were most of them in Idaho Falls.
A new town always has the highest hopes and the most investment in its earliest years- the years that follow just after they were more temporary stops along the line and uncertain to be permanent.
The mining camps, like a lot of farm towns, were first all canvas tents and/or wood framed buildings cut from local timber. It seems that the 1880-1890s were the decade here when a lot of our earliest settlements showed enough promisee to become permanent, as that's the era when brick and stone began appearing.
Banks, City Halls, County Courthouses, and Masonic Lodges were always the first buildings to be made of brick or stone, followed shortly by the biggest hotels and commercial buildings.
They are all good indications of when a town settled down and began to be the permanent home for the residents. Before then, it appears a lot of towns were lived in as a place to make enough money to move on to somewhere else.
There's another tell-tale for a small town's age; before the railroads came, the distance horse-drawn freight wagons could cover in a long day was 40 miles. So the early little waystops that eventually became towns were all about 40 miles apart.
After the rails were laid, the distance became 60 miles. That's the distance a steam locomotive could travel before it needed to stop to refill the boiler's water tank.
Interestingly, after the railroads came, they brought in the first road equipment that was heavy enough to compact the roadways. The steamrollers made the dirt road surfaces hard enough that they increased the distance a horse could travel in a day's time to 60 miles.
And the hard roads made the automobile possible as transportation out here. As late as 1920, those horse-drawn freight wagons were still in use in many parts of this state.
I knew an older guy who, as a child, rode with his father on a freight wagon. He said that after they left Mountain Home, he would watch for the first sight of Boise.
As soon as he could see the tall clock tower by the railroad station, the tallest landmark for decades, the wagon was 6 hours away from the Boise city limits.
"Are we there yet, Dad?" is no new thing.
Last edited by banjomike; 06-30-2020 at 10:26 PM..
Yup.
Name association all depends on what a person knows.
For years, whenever I heard UConn mentioned on the radio or news, I instantly thought of Ucon, another little old railroad farm town a few miles from Idaho Falls.
I never knew that about Arco gasoline. I've seen some of their stations, but I've never stopped at one that I can recall.
I didn't know much about Arco's early history, either, only that it had been there for a very long time.
A person can spot the age of a town here looking at the materials that were used to build the biggest buildings a lot of times. Arco's biggest are all constructed out of the local rock and lava, as were most of them in Idaho Falls.
A new town always has the highest hopes and the most investment in its earliest years- the years that follow just after they were more temporary stops along the line and uncertain to be permanent.
The mining camps, like a lot of farm towns, were first all canvas tents and/or wood framed buildings cut from local timber. It seems that the 1880-1890s were the decade here when a lot of our earliest settlements showed enough promisee to become permanent, as that's the era when brick and stone began appearing.
Banks, City Halls, County Courthouses, and Masonic Lodges were always the first buildings to be made of brick or stone, followed shortly by the biggest hotels and commercial buildings.
They are all good indications of when a town settled down and began to be the permanent home for the residents. Before then, it appears a lot of towns were lived in as a place to make enough money to move on to somewhere else.
Those old mining camps all burned down several times, and only a few lasted long enough to become permanent.
Do you see this happening in Idaho Falls or Pocatello? I would think because of the development now happening in these two places could it be a repeat of history in the making again?
Do you see this happening in Idaho Falls or Pocatello? I would think because of the development now happening in these two places could it be a repeat of history in the making again?
Yes, but I also see a new kind of temporary construction going on. There are a lot of new commercial buildings being erected around here that have light steel framing instead of wood and exteriors made of plastic foam boards that are heavily plastered to make them fire-resistant and look like stucco.
This construction is safe enough to meet code, but it's cheap and easily demolished. Some of the first here, build in the late 80s, have already been demolished and replaced with bigger, more permanent structures.
Traditional stucco is concrete over wood lathe with a top-coat of plaster to smooth it out. That's about as permanent as brick when it's done on the inside too.
A lot of a town's construction reflects its economic times and the overall economic soundness of the community.
At first, a waystop town has to show some potential for growth. Some don't, but others do, and getting in early can make a fortune for a canny speculator.
So the first permanent buildings always tend to be where the money would go. Pioneers all craved civilization, so usually, the very oldest permanent buildings are a courthouse/jail and a church. Those are the first civilizers.
The Masonic Lodge was also a big civilizer. It's an ancient men's social fraternity, and is always a good place for a married man who doesn't want to hang out with the rowdies in the saloon to go for socializing. The Masons have their own women's and children's clubs too, so a town's married ladies had a respectable place to go socialize after a Lodge was built.
The Lodge almost always produced a town's early civil leadership- the Mayors, Lawyers, Newspapermen, Teachers, Preachers, and Librarians all tended to be Masons.
There were other fraternities as well. and in some towns here, the Woodsmen of the World or one the others had bigger memberships. Fraternities were about the only places where like-minded men or men who shared an occupation could congregate and have a good time sober other than a church house.
Most times, the church came first, but not always. A town needed a lot of women in it before churches were built, but a Masonic Lodge didn't. The earliest Lodges were quite often tents that were just like all the others in town, especially in the mining towns.
They are followed by the most needed buildings for the greatest commerce. Usually, a bank is the next to follow, along with a hotel/restaurant/bar, and then some sort of warehouse where the town's production, whatever it may be, is centrally stored. That could be a set of granaries, or a fortified building for metal ingots in Idaho.
Then, in turn, other business become permanent, along with the most prominent citizen's housing.
Folks today don't join fraternities much anymore, but back in Idaho's early days, they were all very powerful civilizing forces. The Masons had as many southern members as northerners, and after the Civil War, Idaho was the place to go for young men from both regions to make their fortunes.
They brought their old hard feelings against each other when they came, but inside the Lodge, they were all Masons, joined in fraternal brotherhood. The Lodge played important part of keeping those early mining camps peaceful.
That's why you'll see so many photos of the early Sheriffs sporting Masonic badges in them. Those were just as much a symbol the guy was the town's peacemaker as the tin star was.
They were a signal that the guy was respected and popular locally, so don't mess with him. He's got buddies who have his back in these parts. The Mason's pin announced a Sheriff had a lot of civil authority to any newcomer.
Yes, but I also see a new kind of temporary construction going on. There are a lot of new commercial buildings being erected around here that have light steel framing instead of wood and exteriors made of plastic foam boards that are heavily plastered to make them fire-resistant and look like stucco.
This construction is safe enough to meet code, but it's cheap and easily demolished. Some of the first here, build in the late 80s, have already been demolished and replaced with bigger, more permanent structures.
Traditional stucco is concrete over wood lathe with a top-coat of plaster to smooth it out. That's about as permanent as brick when it's done on the inside too.
A lot of a town's construction reflects its economic times and the overall economic soundness of the community.
At first, a waystop town has to show some potential for growth. Some don't, but others do, and getting in early can make a fortune for a canny speculator.
So the first permanent buildings always tend to be where the money would go. Pioneers all craved civilization, so usually, the very oldest permanent buildings are a courthouse/jail and a church. Those are the first civilizers.
The Masonic Lodge was also a big civilizer. It's an ancient men's social fraternity, and is always a good place for a married man who doesn't want to hang out with the rowdies in the saloon to go for socializing. The Masons have their own women's and children's clubs too, so a town's married ladies had a respectable place to go socialize after a Lodge was built.
The Lodge almost always produced a town's early civil leadership- the Mayors, Lawyers, Newspapermen, Teachers, Preachers, and Librarians all tended to be Masons.
There were other fraternities as well. and in some towns here, the Woodsmen of the World or one the others had bigger memberships. Fraternities were about the only places where like-minded men or men who shared an occupation could congregate and have a good time sober other than a church house.
Most times, the church came first, but not always. A town needed a lot of women in it before churches were built, but a Masonic Lodge didn't. The earliest Lodges were quite often tents that were just like all the others in town, especially in the mining towns.
They are followed by the most needed buildings for the greatest commerce. Usually, a bank is the next to follow, along with a hotel/restaurant/bar, and then some sort of warehouse where the town's production, whatever it may be, is centrally stored. That could be a set of granaries, or a fortified building for metal ingots in Idaho.
Then, in turn, other business become permanent, along with the most prominent citizen's housing.
Folks today don't join fraternities much anymore, but back in Idaho's early days, they were all very powerful civilizing forces. The Masons had as many southern members as northerners, and after the Civil War, Idaho was the place to go for young men from both regions to make their fortunes.
They brought their old hard feelings against each other when they came, but inside the Lodge, they were all Masons, joined in fraternal brotherhood. The Lodge played important part of keeping those early mining camps peaceful.
That's why you'll see so many photos of the early Sheriffs sporting Masonic badges in them. Those were just as much a symbol the guy was the town's peacemaker as the tin star was.
They were a signal that the guy was respected and popular locally, so don't mess with him. He's got buddies who have his back in these parts. The Mason's pin announced a Sheriff had a lot of civil authority to any newcomer.
The Masons like "Masonlights" (spelling?).
Rotchchields
These brotherhoods or lodges seem to go on forever at least the above ones above I just mentioned.
The Masons like "Masonlights" (spelling?).
Rotchchields
These brotherhoods or lodges seem to go on forever at least the above ones above I just mentioned.
I've never heard of the Masonlights, so I don't know.
The Masonic Lodge ( I can't recall its full name) is indeed old, for sure. Almost all of our founding fathers belonged to it; George Washington has a portrait where he's wearing the Masonic apron, the ceremonial apparel. Every fraternity has its own apparel in some fashion.
While I have a bunch of Masons in my family tree on both sides, I never joined myself, so I really don't know anything much about who the famous members of the past were.
It's not very secret in my experience; my Grandparents were both active in their respective Masonic organizations all their lives, and the meetings are mostly old ritual stuff that is very similar to Elks' rituals, Eagle's rituals, and all the other social fraternities. When I was a kid, I used to hear my Granddad practicing his speeches once in a while. They reminded me of an old lady's poetry club I was dragged into a time or two.
They all meet once a week, have dinner or something, put on their robes and hats and have a meeting, and then adjourn and hang out drinking beer and gabbing until its time to go home.
I've played hundreds of dances at them all for their special occasions, and from what I can see, they're all pretty much the same. They were all created for socialization.
While it seems they all require a recommendation from a member to be able to join any of them, the membership doesn't ever seem to be very exclusive. It's all about as casual as a VFW hall to me, from what I've observed. Or like the Boy Scouts. Or college frats; I've heard they're similar.
The rituals are just a device they all have to get someone to run the place and get the help to keep it all going.
I used to know one of them by heart- The Elks interrupt all their events at 11:00, and the chief Elk (whatever he's called) says a short speech that's all about 11 o'clock being a tender hour for Elkdom, a time when they remember their departed brothers. And then they all respond with a very solemn toast.
...and then they go back to partying sedately.
It's actually all quite dignified, and there's nothing dark or sinister in any of it.
The more badges a guy has, the higher up he is. Same thing with the women and the kids; they all have branches for them.
I'll bet that if you want to know more about any of them, all you would have to do is go to the local lodge and inquire when it's open. They all want new members these days, as the fraternities all are slowly withering away, it appears.
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(fuel can be low in cost like Costco Gasoline station). I would think that Atomic City would become a tourist attraction as it is part of history and disaster
. Sounds like Atomic City is becoming a ghost town. Or is it even safe to live there now / visit there because of what happened there?
