American Falls Power Plants

This panel is gone. By July 2025 only its empty frame stood beside the highway, and its words survive in a 2018 photograph. The plants it described have a successor. The first went in on the falls in 1902 and passed to Idaho Power in 1916. The Bureau of Reclamation's dam of 1927 began to fail within about forty years, and a new dam was built just downstream between 1976 and 1978, with an Idaho Power plant of three generators and about 112 megawatts. The old dam was then demolished.

What the plaque says

American Falls Power Plants More than two decades before American Falls Dam was built, water power was generated in a series of plants at American Falls. Starting with an island plant to serve Pocatello in 1902, this superlative site was utilized soon after long transmission lines were developed. As new kinds of turbines and generators were invented, they were installed here. Rare examples of old technology still are preserved in these landmark plants. 383 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Massacre Rocks State Park — 8.5 mi
  Named for emigrant deaths that happened somewhere else, five months before a massacre that was called a battle.

More markers nearby

• American Falls — 1.7 mi
• Oregon Trail — 7.0 mi
• Emigrant Trails — 17 mi
• Idaho State University — 23 mi