Blackfoot

History

The city of Blackfoot is located near the center of Bingham County, on the south side of the Snake River. It was designated the county seat by the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature on January 13, 1885. Originally, the county seat was to be Eagle Rock (the original name for Idaho Falls). However, supposedly, on the night before the legislation was to be signed, men from Blackfoot bribed a clerk to erase Eagle Rock and write in Blackfoot. The measure went through without opposition and was signed by the governor. The origin of this accusation, written many years after the event, was a Blackfoot newspaper editor named Byrd Trego. The battle for county seat between Eagle Rock and Blackfoot was a political tug-of-war involving sectional and anti-Mormon factions in the Idaho Legislature. The leader of the southeastern Idaho anti-Mormons was a Yale graduate named Fred Dubois, who settled in Blackfoot in 1880. The legislative maneuvering to overturn Eagle Rock as the county seat naturally left "disparaging rumors intimating some skullduggery on Blackfoot’s part." Frederick S. Stevens and Joe Warren were the first permanent white settlers of record in Bingham County. In 1866, Stevens and Warren filed claims in the Snake River Valley near the present-day location of Blackfoot, where they started farming and ranching. The area was a flat, expansive plain of sagebrush frequented by Indians. To create a place of safety for the scattered settlers when they feared Indian trouble, Mr. Warren outfitted his cabin with holes between the logs where men could stand guard, day or night, until the natives left the neighborhood. When the Utah and Northern Railway signed contracts to expand north into Idaho in the 1870s, some of the settlers laid out a town on the Shilling and Lewis…

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Blackfoot has a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) with cold winters and hot summers.

Race & ethnicity

Largest nearby schools

• BLACKFOOT HIGH SCHOOL
  High · BLACKFOOT · 1,286 students
• SNAKE RIVER ONLINE
  Elementary · BLACKFOOT · 975 students · 65:1 ratio
• SNAKE RIVER HIGH SCHOOL
  High · BLACKFOOT · 608 students · 15.6:1 ratio
• MOUNTAIN VIEW MIDDLE SCHOOL
  Middle · BLACKFOOT · 588 students
• I T STODDARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
  Elementary · BLACKFOOT · 406 students
• RIDGE CREST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
  Elementary · BLACKFOOT · 374 students
• BLACKFOOT CHARTER COMMUNITY
  Elementary · BLACKFOOT · 355 students · 16.1:1 ratio
• IDAHO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CHARTER SCHOOL
  Other · BLACKFOOT · 303 students · 13.2:1 ratio