On our way back from Logan Canyon we decided to take a detour. I know…no big surprise there. Where we detoured may surprise you. We went to the towns of Soda Springs and to Chesterfield. Both are in South East Idaho. One is a ghost town and the other is home to a man controlled geyser.
We first came to Soda Springs. This town is home to the world’s only captive geyser. What does that mean? In 1937, some local businessmen were drilling to try to find, then divert hot water from Pyramid Spring for a public bathhouse. After drilling to more than 300 feet, they hit a gas pocket and when the 3500 drill bit was removed, water shot over 70 feet in the air. The geyser misted the town for more than a day and sent water down Main Street. The water had undesirable mineral content in it and was unsuitable for the bathhouse.
Within weeks of this event, the Secretary of the Interior sent a letter to Soda Springs asking them to turn the geyser off because it was throwing Old Faithful off of its schedule. Can you believe that? Old Faithful is over 200 miles from Soda Springs but this geyser was throwing off Old Faithful. This makes you really appreciate the underground network of water, gas and magma. It took drillers two weeks to cap the geyser and now it releases pressure and throws 72 degree water into the air every hour on the hour.
However, when we were there, something was wrong with the mechanism that allowed this to happen and we never got to see it release the water. It was more of a steady flow like a stream out of where the geyser outlet was. All of the surrounding area was orange and red. The boardwalk around it had wood that looked like concrete from all of the minerals. The story was very interesting and the geyser would have been interesting to see.
After Soda Springs, we headed on down the road to seek out a ghost town named Chesterfield. This town was established in 1881 by a Mormon settlers. It is actually located on the Oregon Trail in the foothills of the Portneuf Valley.
In 1879, a man by the name of Chester Call established a horse ranch with his niece’s husband in this area. Thinking that this would be a good place to live, he told his family and friends about the area and, thus, they decided to settle it in 1881. They built their homes near the Portneuf River. This was west of where Chesterfield is today. This town was different from other Mormon settlements. Typically, LDS Authorities (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) send people to settle an area and it is setup a certain way from the beginning. This was setup by settlers of the Mormon faith not sent by LDS Authorities. So, in 1883 when LDS Church Authorities visited the area to establish a branch, the town was moved to its current location and laid out in a grid pattern with a LDS Meetinghouse, Tithing House, Amusement Hall, School, and other common buildings to LDS communities.
The town began to grow. The railroad decided to lay their tracks through Bancroft, a town to the south of Chesterfield. Residents of Chesterfield sold logs and railroad ties to the railroad to generate more capital for the town. In 1884 there were 24 families and 136 people in Chesterfield. This population continued to grow to its peak of just under 700 people in 1920. Then recessions and nationwide agricultural problems began to seriously affect Chesterfield and people began to leave. The school finally closed in 1941, the general store closed in 1958 and by 1970 only 20 people lived in historic Chesterfield.
Today you can see many of the buildings abandoned and in disrepair. You can go to the tops of some of the hills to get a view of the remains of many of the buildings and get an idea of how it looked at one time. Chesterfield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district and on the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation’s Historic Sites Registry. Today, a non-profit, called the Chesterfield Foundation, is slowly repairing and reconstructing the buildings in an attempt to restore Chesterfield. But, until more people move back, it remains a ghost town.
Both of these places are interesting historically. And if you are meandering through the Portneuf Foothills, you may want to stop in and see if Soda Springs has their geyser fixed or if Chesterfield is still a ghost town or now inhabited. If you do, please come back and leave us a comment as to what your findings are when you visit. Safe Travels.
