U.S. 91 and Idaho 34: The Cache Valley Crossing
North from Logan up Cache Valley into Idaho: Franklin, Preston, the Boa Ogoi massacre site, the Black Canyon at Grace and the geyser at Soda Springs.
The Route at a Glance
From Logan, US-91 runs due north up Cache Valley through Smithfield and Richmond, dairy and hay country under the Bear River Range, and crosses into Idaho without much ceremony. The valley does not change at the line; the people who settled its north end did not know where the line was. This is the southern half of Idaho's Pioneer Historic Byway, which follows US-91 and Idaho 34 from the Utah border toward Wyoming. Taken from Logan to Soda Springs it is about eighty-five miles, two hours of driving, and the west side of a loop that returns to Logan by Bear Lake.
Franklin, the first town over the line, is Idaho's oldest, founded in 1860; its relic hall and the stone Hatch House each have their own markers. A few miles on is Preston, the farm town Jared Hess cast as itself in Napoleon Dynamite.
North of Preston, US-91 reaches the bend of the Bear River that the Northwestern Shoshone called Boa Ogoi. Before dawn on January 29, 1863, Army volunteers out of Fort Douglas attacked the winter camp there and killed hundreds of men, women and children. For more than a century the roadside monument called it a battle. The Northwestern Band has since bought back much of the ground, and Boa Ogoi is being restored as its own place. The road to it doubles back; come back to the Idaho 34 junction to go on.
Idaho 34 follows the Bear River northeast through Gentile Valley, named by non-Mormon stockmen as a warning, to Thatcher and Grace, where the river has cut the Black Canyon through the basalt and a power company has piped most of the water around it since 1908. North of Grace the highway meets US-30 near Soda Point, where lava turned the Bear south long ago and where the wagons of 1849 left the trail for California on Hudspeth's Cutoff. The drive ends at the Soda Springs Geyser, where the Bear Lake Crossing begins its own run south to the lake.
The roads are open year-round. Preston and Soda Springs have the services; between them there is little.
The Drive, Stop by Stop
5 stops along the route, in driving order from Logan, Utah to Soda Springs, Idaho.
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- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let U.S. 91 and Idaho 34: The Cache Valley Crossing do what it does best.
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