While none of these places was on our list of national park units we had planned to see, our re-route to southern Idaho for several days to escape the wildfires north and west allowed us time in each of the following three places:
Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument Hagerman, Idaho
It’s one thing to see movies depicting pre-historic times when animals like mastodons and giant sloths roamed the earth… it’s another thing to actually see the fossil remains of these and other unique creatures and imagine a time on Earth when these animals roamed freely. Here in the Hagerman Fossil Beds, paleontologists have discovered more than 200 species of plants and animals preserved from a time some three-and-a-half million years ago when the land in this area was much wetter and supported a wide variety of life.
Saber-toothed cats, mastodons, camels, ground sloths, hyena-like dogs, beavers, muskrats, otters, antelope, deer, fish, frogs, snakes, and waterfowl all lived in the area of southern Idaho, as did a now-extinct animal known as the “Hagerman horse.” Looking less like a horse and more like a zebra, it is believed that a sudden flood caused a herd of these zebra-like creatures to die all together here. Their bones fossilized and were buried under sediment layers for over three million years.
In 1929, a rancher near the small town of Hagerman showed some fossil beds to a government geologist. A remarkable discovery this was! Throughout the 1930s, Smithsonian Institute geologists excavated some 120 horse skulls and 20 complete skeletons from one of more than 600 fossil sites here outside Hagerman. In total, these fossil beds have produced more than 40,000 specimens. The Smithsonian has exchanged several Hagerman horse skeletons with other museums, resulting in their display around the world.
The lesson is taught that here in the Hagerman area, as in all other areas when significant environmental change takes place, plants and animals have three options: adapt to their new environment, migrate away from the changing area, or die.
For much of this area’s early history, these lava beds were a mysterious blank spot on maps. Shoshone Indians were known to have passed through here. In the 1800s, European-Americans came through the area, as well, but they mostly avoided the lavas. Finally, through sheer curiosity, federal geologists explored here in the early 1900s. And in the 1920s, a taxidermist and Idaho promotor, Robert Limbert, helped draw national attention to these lava lands which contributed to the establishment of Craters of the Moon as a national monument. Famously in 1969, NASA’s Apollo Astronauts came here to study basic volcanic geology as they prepared for their moon missions.
The park has been greatly expanded over the years with much of it designated as wilderness. It features a 7-mile scenic drive through lava fields and sagebrush steppe grasslands that is really quite beautiful. Visitors can hike up a cinder cone, through lava-tube caves and tunnels, and even backcountry camp in this place that, while seemingly forsaken, is actually teeming with life.
Minidoka National Historic Site — Jerome, Idaho
Two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order that forced nearly 120,000 Japanese-Americans into ten relocation centers located in isolated areas across the country. The Minidoka War Relocation Center in south-central Idaho is one of these internment camps. Fearing Japanese sabotage on the West Coast, some 9,000 Japanese-American citizens and resident Japanese aliens from Alaska, Washington, and Oregon were uprooted and involuntarily moved to this desolate, high-desert, middle-of-nowhere place where, from August 1942 until October 1945, they were forced to live. Finally after the war had ended they were allowed to return home.
Despite their internment, most Japanese Americans remained intensely loyal to the United States, and many demonstrated their loyalty by volunteering for military service. Here at Minidoka, nearly 10 percent of the internees volunteered for service; the highest number at any of these camps. Today a large memorial stands to honor those Japanese-Americans from this place who proudly served.
Today’s Minidoka site, known locally as Hunt Camp, preserves a few of the remaining relics of the camp that weren’t even finished when the first internees arrived. A few interpretive and memorial displays are here for visitors to see, but most of the exhibits related to Minidoka are on display at another location and will be added to this park in the future — it would appear when more budget money is allocated here.
Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve — Arco, Idaho
A “weird and scenic landscape peculiar to itself” is how President Calvin Coolidge described the site when Craters of the Moon National Monument was established in 1924. This strange landscape of lava fields was formed not from a giant erupting volcano, but from lava leaking out from a series of deep fissures known collectively as the Great Rift which is located in the Snake River Basin in south-central Idaho.
For much of this area’s early history, these lava beds were a mysterious blank spot on maps. Shoshone Indians were known to have passed through here. In the 1800s, European-Americans came through the area, as well, but they mostly avoided the lavas. Finally, through sheer curiosity, federal geologists explored here in the early 1900s. And in the 1920s, a taxidermist and Idaho promotor, Robert Limbert, helped draw national attention to these lava lands which contributed to the establishment of Craters of the Moon as a national monument. Famously in 1969, NASA’s Apollo Astronauts came here to study basic volcanic geology as they prepared for their moon missions.
The park has been greatly expanded over the years with much of it designated as wilderness. It features a 7-mile scenic drive through lava fields and sagebrush steppe grasslands that is really quite beautiful. Visitors can hike up a cinder cone, through lava-tube caves and tunnels, and even backcountry camp in this place that, while seemingly forsaken, is actually teeming with life.
