Idaho Falls | ||
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City | ||
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Location in the United States | ||
Coordinates: 43°30′N 112°2′W / 43.500°N 112.033°WCoordinates: 43°30′N 112°2′W / 43.500°N 112.033°W | ||
Country | United States | |
State | Idaho | |
County | Bonneville | |
Founded | 1864 | |
Incorporated | 1891 | |
Government | ||
• Mayor | Rebecca Casper | |
Area | ||
• City | 22.80 sq mi (59.05 km2) | |
• Land | 22.35 sq mi (57.89 km2) | |
• Water | 0.45 sq mi (1.17 km2) | |
Elevation | 4,705 ft (1,434 m) | |
Population (2010) | ||
• City | 56,813 | |
• Estimate (2014) | 58,691 | |
• Density | 2,542.0/sq mi (981.5/km2) | |
• Metro | 136,108 | |
Time zone | Mountain (UTC-7) | |
• Summer (DST) | Mountain (UTC-6) | |
Area code(s) | 208 | |
FIPS code | 16-39700 | |
GNIS feature ID | 0396684 | |
Website | www |
Idaho Falls is a city in and the county seat of Bonneville County, Idaho, United States, and is the largest city in Eastern Idaho. As of the 2010 census, the population of Idaho Falls was 56,813, with a metro population of 136,108. As of 2013[update], the population was estimated at 58,292.
Idaho Falls is the principal city of the Idaho Falls, Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Idaho Falls-Blackfoot, Idaho Combined Statistical Area and is the state's largest city outside the Boise metropolitan area and is the third-largest metro area behind Boise City-Nampa and Coeur d'Alene, which is adjacent to the larger Spokane metropolitan area.
Idaho Falls serves as a hub to all of eastern Idaho and much of western Wyoming. Due to its relative economic vitality, high quality of life, and proximity to world-class outdoor recreation, it is often featured in various publications' lists of "best places to live." The area is served by the Idaho Falls Regional Airport and is home to the Idaho Falls Chukars minor league baseball team, and the Idaho Mustangs, a semi-professional football team that plays in the Rocky Mountain Football League.
What became Idaho Falls was the site of Taylor’s Crossing on the Montana Trail which was a timber frame bridge built across the Snake River. The 1865 bridge was built by Matt Taylor who was a Montana Trail freighter who built a toll bridge across a narrow black basaltic gorge of the river that succeeded a ferry seven miles upstream by several years. Taylor’s bridge served the new tide of westward migration and travel in the region that followed the military suppression of Shoshone resistance at the Bear River Massacre near Preston, Idaho in 1863. The bridge improved travel for settlers moving north and west and also for miners, freighters, and others seeking riches in the gold fields of Idaho and Montana and especially the boom towns of Bannack and Virginia City in western Montana.