Market Lake

Market Lake was named for what could be killed there. In 1835 the trapper Osborne Russell found the flats crowded with bison and antelope, and by the town's own telling trappers called the place a market. Later the waterfowl that stopped each spring and fall drew market hunters who shot birds for sale, and Idaho Fish and Game credits them with the name. The lakeside town was Market Lake until 1910, when it became Roberts, for an Oregon Short Line official. By 1956, when the state began buying back the basin for waterfowl, about 30 acres of wetland remained.

What the plaque says

Market Lake The flat irrigated fields that stretch to the next interchange used to be a great Indian and trappers' hunting ground in an old lake that came and went. In historic times Market Lake was formed during the great Snake River Flood of 1853. When a new railroad grade blocked the overflow channel leading from the river, the lake disappeared for a time after 1887. Later irrigation seepage restored the lake, and now the level is regulated for farming and for a wildlife refuge. 323 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Menan Buttes — 11 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 — 19 mi
  Four hundred feet of white sand, open to machines most of the year and closed to people when the elk come down.

More markers nearby

• Menan Buttes — 11 mi
• Beaver Dick — 14 mi
• Brigham Young University-Idaho — 20 mi
• Elephant Hunters — 21 mi