Chief Pocatello

His own name was Tondzaosha, Buffalo Robe. His daughter, Jeanette Lewis, said that Pocatello meant nothing in Shoshoni, and the earliest written use has been traced to Frederick Lander, who met him in 1859 and arranged his release from Army custody. The railroad town at the reservation's southern edge took the name, and the city kept it. He asked to be buried in a large spring near Bannock Creek, where he had been living, and was laid there in October 1884 with his horses. That ground now lies under American Falls Reservoir.

What the plaque says

Chief Pocatello In an era of emigrants, Mormon settlers and the military, Pocatello emerged as a strong leader of the Hukenduka Shoshone. Born after 1810, Pocatello claimed this area and surrounding territories as his homeland. He soon watched his people endure brutality, disease and starvation. For retaliating, he was nearly hanged until President Lincoln intervened. After 1875, he lived a reservation life until his death around 1884. He was buried in a bottomless spring with 18 horses. 503 Text prepared by descendents of Chief Pocatello and the Idaho State Historical Society Marker made and installed by Idaho Transportation Dept

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Museum — 12 mi
  Fort Hall told from the other side of the trade counter, by the tribes whose reservation now surrounds the site of the post.
• Lava Hot Springs — 26 mi
  The pools belong to the state because the springs left the Fort Hall Reservation and Congress handed them to Idaho in 1902.

More markers nearby

• Idaho State University — 1.1 mi
• Idaho's 1st Railroad — 8.7 mi
• American Falls — 22 mi
• Lava Hot Springs — 26 mi