Preston and Napoleon Dynamite

Preston is a farm town at the north end of Cache Valley, the Franklin County seat, with a wide main street, a high school and a thrift store. In July 2003 Jared Hess, who had graduated from Preston High School in 1997, came back with his wife and co-writer Jerusha, a cast led by Jon Heder and a budget of about $400,000, and shot Napoleon Dynamite around town in just over twenty days. Most of the film's situations are loosely drawn from his own years there.

What makes the film's Preston recognizable is how little was dressed. The school scenes, tetherball included, were shot at the real high school. The orange suit came off a mannequin at the Deseret Industries thrift store. Napoleon's house stands on a country road outside town; the egg farm, the convenience store in Franklin and the fields along the section roads are what they look like in the film, because that is what they were. The movie opened at Sundance in January 2004 and took in more than $40 million, and the Idaho Legislature passed a resolution commending the Hesses for it.

For several summers afterward Preston ran a Napoleon Dynamite festival, with tater-tot eating, tetherball tournaments and look-alike contests, and fans still come with a list of locations. The town's other history sits close by: about four miles north on US-91 is Boa Ogoi, the site of the Bear River Massacre, which the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation is restoring as its own ground.

The high school is on South 2nd East and the thrift store is downtown. Napoleon's house and the farms are private property; look from the road.