Potatoes aren't the only thing to spring from the fields of southeastern Idaho. In 1921, a brilliant young engineer had a "Eureka" moment that forever changed the world. While working on the family farm in Rigby, Philo Farnsworth figured out the principle of the image dissector, leading to his invention of the electronic television. He was fourteen years old at the time.
Weighing in with a whopping 23% of the state's population, Latter-Day Saints make up the biggest religious denomination in Idaho, beating both Evangelicals (22%) and Catholics (18%). This statistic came as a surprise to us; during our journey through Idaho, we didn't notice much Mormon influence at all... that is, at least, until we reached the southeastern corner of the state.
In 1955, tiny Arco won fame as the world's first nuclear-powered city. Today, it mainly serves as a jumping-off point for excursions into the nearby Craters of the Moon National Monument. Arco is one of Idaho's strangest little towns, although nearby Atomic City manages to be even stranger. And littler.
Comprising 618 square miles of other-worldly lava-formed landscape, the Craters of the Moon National Monument is one of the strangest geographic areas in the entire country. Harsh, dry and largely barren, this craggily beautiful region has remained largely untouched by a humanity that never figured out a use for it. We visited one morning in late October, after a light layer of snow had covered the ground.
