Soda Springs

The reservoir that drowned them was built for power. Utah Power and Light finished Soda Dam on the Bear River in 1923 and its powerhouse in 1924, the last of the company's Bear River plants, and Alexander Reservoir rose over Steamboat Spring and the old townsite. The builders left a small construction locomotive on the valley floor. When the reservoir was lowered for inspection in 1976, workers found it in the mud; Union Pacific restored it in Omaha, and the Dinkey is on display in Soda Springs.

What the plaque says

Soda Springs In this area are a group of springs famous to Oregon Trail travelers, most of whom stopped to try the "acid taste and effervessing gasses" of the waters. Earlier, fur traders often--less elegantly--called the place "Beer Springs" after one spring whose water tasted "like Lager Beer ... only flat." Another, Steamboat Spring, made sounds "exactly resembling ... a high pressure steam engine." Both springs are now drowned in the modern reservoir, but others still can be tasted. 158 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Soda Springs Geyser — 1.1 mi
  Drillers looking for hot water for a swimming pool hit cold soda water under pressure. The town put the geyser on a timer.
• Black Canyon of the Bear River — 8.5 mi
  A basalt gorge cut by a river that, most of the year, now runs past it in a pipe.
• Lava Hot Springs — 20 mi
  The pools belong to the state because the springs left the Fort Hall Reservation and Congress handed them to Idaho in 1902.
• National Oregon/California Trail Center — 29 mi
  Emigrants came down off Big Hill and camped in the clover here. Brigham Young renamed the town; the trail center brings the camp back in costume.

More markers nearby

• Camp Connor — steps away
• Hooper Spring — 1.2 mi
• John Bidwell — 3.9 mi
• Bear River Lava — 3.9 mi