Brigham Young University-Idaho

The sign lists every name the school wore and leaves out the years it nearly left. In 1957 Church leaders weighed moving Ricks College to Idaho Falls, a larger town half an hour south, and after hundreds of letters from Rexburg they said it would stay. Late in 1958 the decision went the other way and was announced as final, and Rexburg spent more than two years pleading its case. On April 26, 1961, the First Presidency announced three new buildings for the campus in Rexburg instead, and the college's own history still marks that date.

What the plaque says

Brigham Young University-Idaho Brigham Young University-Idaho had its beginnings in 1888 as an academy affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Initially known as Bannock Stake Academy, It was renamed Fremont Stake Academy, Smith Academy, Ricks Academy, Ricks Normal College, and eventually Ricks College. The name memorializes Thomas E. Ricks who founded Rexburg in 1883. In 2001, Ricks College became BYU-Idaho, a four year university and Idaho's largest private institution of higher education. 404 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Menan Buttes — 9.4 mi
  Two volcanoes built where lava ran into the Snake River, and one of them open to walk around the rim.
• St. Anthony Sand Dunes — 11 mi
  Four hundred feet of white sand, open to machines most of the year and closed to people when the elk come down.
• Teton Dam Site — 14 mi
  Geologists warned that the canyon walls would leak. The warnings were softened, the dam was finished, and it never held a full reservoir.

More markers nearby

• Beaver Dick — 6.0 mi
• Fort Henry — 7.2 mi
• Menan Buttes — 9.1 mi
• Teton Flood — 13 mi