Shoshone Falls

The first photographs of these falls were made in the fall of 1868 by Timothy O'Sullivan, photographer to Clarence King's survey of the Fortieth Parallel, who set up camp beside the river and caught the mist hanging over the drop. He came back in 1874 with the Wheeler survey, and in all his years in the West it was the only place he photographed twice. King wrote the falls up for his readers in Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. The plates are in the Library of Congress.

What the plaque says

Shoshone Falls 4 miles east of here, the Snake River falls in thunder 210 feet over a rocky ledge higher than famous Niagara. Indians, trappers, and travellers all knew the "Great Shoshonie." Now the waters upstream have been harnessed for irrigation and power, and in the dry summer months the rocks can be seen. But the foaming river and the sheer walls of the canyon combine with the paths and shady lawns of the park and picnic area to make one of Idaho's most spectacular scenes. At Shoshone Falls, a natural textbook of earth's forces lies open for you. 172 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Perrine Bridge — steps away
  Four hundred and eighty-six feet of air between deck and river, and the one span in the country you may jump from without asking.
• Shoshone Falls — 2.7 mi
  Higher than Niagara, and turned up and down on a schedule. What reaches the rim is whatever the canals leave.
• Minidoka National Historic Site — 12 mi
  The prisoners built a board for the names of their sons in the Army. When the camp was given away as farms, the board was lost.
• Box Canyon Springs — 20 mi
  The eleventh-largest spring in the United States, pouring from the head of a dead-end canyon with water that sank into the lava far to the northeast.

More markers nearby

• College of Southern Idaho — steps away
• Emigrant Road — 1.5 mi
• Hansen Bridge — 8.2 mi
• Prehistoric Hunters — 9.7 mi