Snake River
The Snake River is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest region in the United States. At 1,078 miles long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, in turn the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean; the Snake River rises in western Wyoming flows through the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho, the rugged Hells Canyon on the Oregon–Idaho border and the rolling Palouse Hills of Washington, emptying into the Columbia River at the Tri-Cities, Washington. The Snake River drainage basin encompasses parts of six U. S. is known for its varied geologic history. The Snake River Plain was created by a volcanic hotspot which now lies underneath the Snake River headwaters in Yellowstone National Park. Gigantic glacial-retreat flooding episodes that occurred during the previous Ice Age carved out canyons and waterfalls along the middle and lower Snake River. Two of these catastrophic flooding events, the Missoula Floods and Bonneville Flood affected the river and its surroundings.
Prehistoric Native Americans lived along the Snake starting more than 11,000 years ago. Salmon from the Pacific Ocean spawned by the millions in the river, were a vital resource for people living on the Snake downstream of Shoshone Falls. By the time Lewis and Clark explored the area, the Nez Perce and Shoshone were the dominant Native American groups in the region. Explorers and fur trappers further changed and used the resources of the Snake River basin. At one point, sign language used by the Shoshones representing weaving baskets was misinterpreted to represent a snake, giving the Snake River its name. By the middle 19th century, the Oregon Trail had become well established, bringing numerous settlers to the Snake River region. Steamboats and railroads moved agricultural products and minerals along the river throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Starting in the 1890s, fifteen major dams have been built on the Snake River to generate hydroelectricity, enhance navigation, provide irrigation water.
However, these dams blocked salmon migration above Hells Canyon and have led to water quality and environmental issues in certain parts of the river. The removal of several dams on the lower Snake River has been proposed, in order to restore some of the river's once-tremendous salmon runs. Formed by the confluence of three tiny streams on the southwest flank of Two Oceans Plateau in Yellowstone National Park, western Wyoming, the Snake starts out flowing west and south into Jackson Lake, its first 50 miles run through Jackson Hole, a wide valley between the Teton Range and the Gros Ventre Range. Below the tourist town of Jackson, the river turns west and flows through Snake River Canyon, cutting through the Snake River Range and into eastern Idaho, it receives the Hoback and Greys Rivers before entering Palisades Reservoir, where the Salt River joins at the mouth of Star Valley. Below Palisades Dam, the Snake River flows through the Snake River Plain, a vast arid physiographic province extending through southern Idaho south-west of the Rocky Mountains and underlain by the Snake River Aquifer, one of the most productive aquifers in the United States.
Southwest of Rexburg, the Snake is joined from the north by Henrys Fork. The Henrys Fork is sometimes called the North Fork of the Snake River, with the main Snake above their confluence known as the "South Fork". From there it turns south, flowing through downtown Idaho Falls past the Fort Hall Indian Reservation and into American Falls Reservoir, where it is joined by the Portneuf River; the Portneuf River Valley is an overflow channel that in the last glacial period carried floodwaters from pluvial Lake Bonneville into the Snake River altering the landscape of the Snake River Plain through massive erosion. From there the Snake resumes its journey west, it is interrupted by several major cataracts, the largest being 212-foot Shoshone Falls, which marked the upriver limit of migrating salmon. A short distance downstream. Near Twin Falls, the Snake approaches the southernmost point in its entire course, after which it starts to flow west-northwest; the Snake continues through its canyon, receiving the Malad River from the east near Bliss and the Bruneau River from the south in C.
J. Strike Reservoir, it passes through an agricultural valley about 30 miles southwest of Boise and flows west into Oregon, before turning north to define the Idaho–Oregon border. Here the Snake River doubles in size as it receives several major tributaries – the Owyhee from the southwest the Boise and Payette rivers from the east, further downstream the Malheur River from the west and Weiser River from the east. North of Boise, the Snake enters Hells Canyon, a steep, rapid-strewn gorge that cuts through the Salmon River Mountains and Blue Mountains of Idaho and Oregon. Hells Canyon is one of the most rugged and treacherous portions of the course of the Snake River, posing a major obstacle for 19th-century American explorers. Here the Snake is impounded by Hells Canyon and Brownlee Dams, which together make up the Hells Canyon Hydroelectric Project. At the halfway point in Hells Canyon, in one of the most remote and inaccessible sections of its course, the Snake River is joined from the east by its largest tributary, the Salmon River.
From there, the Snake begins to form the Washington–Idaho border, receiving the Grande Ronde River from the west before receiving the Clearwater River from the east at Lewiston, which marks the head of navigation on the Snake. The river leaves Hells Canyon and turns west, winding through the Palouse Hills of eastern Washington; the Lower Snake River Project's four dams and
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a 2,170-mile historic East–West, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas, nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming; the western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Oregon. The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840, was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared farther west, reached all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, at which point what came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete as annual improvements were made in the form of bridges, cutoffs and roads, which made the trip faster and safer. From various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
From the early to mid-1830s the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, miners and business owners and their families. The eastern half of the trail was used by travelers on the California Trail, Mormon Trail, Bozeman Trail, before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west faster and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns established to serve those using the Oregon Trail. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson issued the following instructions to Meriwether Lewis: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by its course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Colorado and/or other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce."
Although Lewis and William Clark found a path to the Pacific Ocean, it was not until 1859 that a direct and practicable route, the Mullan Road, connected the Missouri River to the Columbia River. The first land route across what is now the United States was mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. Lewis and Clark believed they had found a practical overland route to the west coast. On the return trip in 1806, they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and the Clearwater River over Lolo pass again, they traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the head of the Missouri River. This was a shorter and faster route than the one they followed west; this route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot Indians. Though Lewis and Clark had only traveled a narrow portion of the upper Missouri River drainage and part of the Columbia River drainage, these were considered the two major rivers draining most of the Rocky Mountains, the expedition confirmed that there was no "easy" route through the northern Rocky Mountains as Jefferson had hoped.
Nonetheless, this famous expedition had mapped both the eastern and western river valleys that bookend the route of the Oregon Trail across the continental divide—they just had not located the South Pass or some of the interconnecting valleys used in the high country. They did show the way for the mountain men, who within a decade would find a better way across if it was not to be an easy way. Founded by John Jacob Astor as a subsidiary of his American Fur Company in 1810, the Pacific Fur Company operated in the Pacific Northwest in the ongoing North American fur trade. Two movements of PFC employees were planned by Astor, one detachment to be sent to the Columbia River by the Tonquin and the other overland under an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt and his party were to find possible supply routes and trapping territories for further fur trading posts. Upon arriving at the river in March 1811, the Tonquin crew began construction of what became Fort Astoria; the ship left supplies and men to continue work on the station and ventured north up the coast to Clayoquot Sound for a trading expedition.
While anchored there, Jonathan Thorn insulted an elder Tla-o-qui-aht, elected by the natives to negotiate a mutually satisfactory price for animal pelts. Soon after, the vessel was attacked and overwhelmed by the indigenous Clayoquot killing most of the crew except its Quinault interpreter, who told the PFC management at Fort Astoria of the destruction; the next day, the ship was blown up by surviving crew members. Under Hunt, fearing attack by the Niitsitapi, the overland expedition veered south of Lewis and Clark's route into what is now Wyoming and in the process passed across Union Pass and into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and down to the Snake River into modern Idaho, they abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, attempted to use the river for transport. After a few days' travel they soon discovered that steep canyon
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. In its purest form, it is a bright reddish yellow, soft and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a group 11 element, it is solid under standard conditions. Gold occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, in alluvial deposits, it occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver and naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less it occurs in minerals as gold compounds with tellurium. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which forms a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which dissolves silver and base metals, a property that has long been used to refine gold and to confirm the presence of gold in metallic objects, giving rise to the term acid test. Gold dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating.
Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys. A rare element, gold is a precious metal, used for coinage and other arts throughout recorded history. In the past, a gold standard was implemented as a monetary policy, but gold coins ceased to be minted as a circulating currency in the 1930s, the world gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system after 1971. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold exists above ground, as of 2015; the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, 10% in industry. Gold's high malleability, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, conductivity of electricity have led to its continued use in corrosion resistant electrical connectors in all types of computerized devices. Gold is used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, tooth restoration. Certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine; as of 2017, the world's largest gold producer by far was China with 440 tonnes per year.
Gold is the most malleable of all metals. It can be drawn into a monoatomic wire, stretched about twice before it breaks; such nanowires distort via formation and migration of dislocations and crystal twins without noticeable hardening. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become semi-transparent; the transmitted light appears greenish blue, because gold reflects yellow and red. Such semi-transparent sheets strongly reflect infrared light, making them useful as infrared shields in visors of heat-resistant suits, in sun-visors for spacesuits. Gold is a good conductor of electricity. Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm3 identical to that of tungsten at 19.25 g/cm3. By comparison, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm3, that of the densest element, osmium, is 22.588±0.015 g/cm3. Whereas most metals are gray or silvery white, gold is reddish-yellow; this color is determined by the frequency of plasma oscillations among the metal's valence electrons, in the ultraviolet range for most metals but in the visible range for gold due to relativistic effects affecting the orbitals around gold atoms.
Similar effects impart a golden hue to metallic caesium. Common colored gold alloys include the distinctive eighteen-karat rose gold created by the addition of copper. Alloys containing palladium or nickel are important in commercial jewelry as these produce white gold alloys. Fourteen-karat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color to certain bronze alloys, both may be used to produce police and other badges. White gold alloys can be made with nickel. Fourteen- and eighteen-karat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and are referred to as green gold. Blue gold can be made by alloying with iron, purple gold can be made by alloying with aluminium. Less addition of manganese, aluminium and other elements can produce more unusual colors of gold for various applications. Colloidal gold, used by electron-microscopists, is red. Gold has only one stable isotope, 197Au, its only occurring isotope, so gold is both a mononuclidic and monoisotopic element. Thirty-six radioisotopes have been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 169 to 205.
The most stable of these is 195Au with a half-life of 186.1 days. The least stable is 171Au. Most of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses below 197 decay by some combination of proton emission, α decay, β+ decay; the exceptions are 195Au, which decays by electron capture, 196Au, which decays most by electron capture with a minor β− decay path. All of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses above 197 decay by β− decay. At least 32 nuclear isomers have been characterized, ranging in atomic mass from 170 to 200. Within that range, only 178Au, 180Au, 181Au, 182Au, 188Au do not have isomers. Gold's most stable isomer is 198m2Au with a half-life of 2.27 days. Gold's least stable isomer is 177m2Au with a half-life of only 7 ns. 184m1Au has three decay paths: β+ decay, isomeric
United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau is a principal agency of the U. S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy; the Census Bureau is part of the U. S. Department of Commerce and its director is appointed by the President of the United States; the Census Bureau's primary mission is conducting the U. S. Census every ten years, which allocates the seats of the U. S. House of Representatives to the states based on their population; the Bureau's various censuses and surveys help allocate over $400 billion in federal funds every year and it helps states, local communities, businesses make informed decisions. The information provided by the census informs decisions on where to build and maintain schools, transportation infrastructure, police and fire departments. In addition to the decennial census, the Census Bureau continually conducts dozens of other censuses and surveys, including the American Community Survey, the U. S. Economic Census, the Current Population Survey.
Furthermore and foreign trade indicators released by the federal government contain data produced by the Census Bureau. Article One of the United States Constitution directs the population be enumerated at least once every ten years and the resulting counts used to set the number of members from each state in the House of Representatives and, by extension, in the Electoral College; the Census Bureau now conducts a full population count every 10 years in years ending with a zero and uses the term "decennial" to describe the operation. Between censuses, the Census Bureau makes population projections. In addition, Census data directly affects how more than $400 billion per year in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for neighborhood improvements, public health, education and more; the Census Bureau is mandated with fulfilling these obligations: the collecting of statistics about the nation, its people, economy. The Census Bureau's legal authority is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code.
The Census Bureau conducts surveys on behalf of various federal government and local government agencies on topics such as employment, health, consumer expenditures, housing. Within the bureau, these are known as "demographic surveys" and are conducted perpetually between and during decennial population counts; the Census Bureau conducts economic surveys of manufacturing, retail and other establishments and of domestic governments. Between 1790 and 1840, the census was taken by marshals of the judicial districts; the Census Act of 1840 established a central office. Several acts followed that revised and authorized new censuses at the 10-year intervals. In 1902, the temporary Census Office was moved under the Department of Interior, in 1903 it was renamed the Census Bureau under the new Department of Commerce and Labor; the department was intended to consolidate overlapping statistical agencies, but Census Bureau officials were hindered by their subordinate role in the department. An act in 1920 changed the date and authorized manufacturing censuses every two years and agriculture censuses every 10 years.
In 1929, a bill was passed mandating the House of Representatives be reapportioned based on the results of the 1930 Census. In 1954, various acts were codified into Title 13 of the US Code. By law, the Census Bureau must count everyone and submit state population totals to the U. S. President by December 31 of any year ending in a zero. States within the Union receive the results in the spring of the following year; the United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. The Census Bureau regions are "widely used...for data collection and analysis". The Census Bureau definition is pervasive. Regional divisions used by the United States Census Bureau: Region 1: Northeast Division 1: New England Division 2: Mid-Atlantic Region 2: Midwest Division 3: East North Central Division 4: West North Central Region 3: South Division 5: South Atlantic Division 6: East South Central Division 7: West South Central Region 4: West Division 8: Mountain Division 9: Pacific Many federal, state and tribal governments use census data to: Decide the location of new housing and public facilities, Examine the demographic characteristics of communities and the US, Plan transportation systems and roadways, Determine quotas and creation of police and fire precincts, Create localized areas for elections, utilities, etc.
Gathers population information every 10 years The United States Census Bureau is committed to confidentiality, guarantees non-disclosure of any addresses or personal information related to individuals or establishments. Title 13 of the U. S. Code establishes penalties for the disclosure of this information. All Census employees must sign an affidavit of non-disclosure prior to employment; the Bureau cannot share responses, addresses or personal information with anyone including United States or foreign government
Silver City, Idaho
Silver City is a ghost town in Owyhee County, United States. At its height in the 1880s, it was a gold and silver mining town with a population of around 2,500 and 75 businesses. Silver City served as county seat of Owyhee County from 1867 to 1934. Today, the town has about 70 standing buildings, all of which are owned. Many of the owners are third- or fourth-generation descendants of the original miners. There are no gas or service stations; the property is now owned by the Bureau of Land Management. Silver City was founded in 1864; the settlement grew and was soon considered one of the major cities in Idaho Territory. The first daily newspaper and telegraph office in Idaho Territory were established in Silver City; the town was among the first places in present-day Idaho to receive electric and telephone service. The placer and quartz vein mines became depleted around the time Idaho became a state in 1890. Due in part to its remote location, Silver City began a slow decline but was never abandoned.
Small-scale mining continued off and on until World War II. The Idaho Hotel in Silver City was restored and re-opened for tourists in 1972, it relies on the use of propane refrigerators and stoves in order to supply cold drinks and snacks or a complete meal to guests during the summer months. The rooms are fitted with indoor plumbing and furnished with antiques, making it a tourist destination. In 1972, the townsite and its environs were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, the Silver City Historic District, with a total area of 10,240 acres. Silver City is located at an elevation of 6,179 feet above sea level, it is located 25 miles southwest via a dirt road. Official website - Historic Silver City Idaho Boise State University - library - Catherine Minear Moore The Owyhee War - 1868 Idaho State Historical Society - photos - digital collections - Owyhee mining district Western Mining History.com - photos - Silver City, Idaho Ghost Towns.com - photos - Silver City, Idaho Exploring Silver City - blog - photos - 2002-08 West County Explorers Club.com - blog - Silver City, Idaho - 2010-10 YouTube.com - video - Silver City at sunset - 2008-09
Boise, Idaho
Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U. S. state of Idaho, is the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, the population of Boise at the 2010 Census was 205,671, the 99th largest in the United States, its estimated population in 2016 was 223,154. The Boise-Nampa metropolitan area known as the Treasure Valley, includes five counties with a combined population of 709,845, the most populous metropolitan area in Idaho, it contains. Boise is the 80th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States. Accounts differ regarding the name's origin. One account credits Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville of the U. S. Army as its source. After trekking for weeks through dry and rough terrain, his exploration party reached an overlook with a view of the Boise River Valley; the place where they stood is called Bonneville Point, located on the Oregon Trail east of the city. According to the story, a French-speaking guide, overwhelmed by the sight of the verdant river, yelled "Les bois!
Les bois!" —and the name stuck. The name may instead derive from earlier mountain men. In the 1820s, French Canadian fur trappers set trap lines in the vicinity. Set in a high-desert area, the tree-lined valley of the Boise River became a distinct landmark, an oasis dominated by cottonwood trees, they called this "La rivière boisée", which means "the wooded river." The area was called Boise long before the establishment of Fort Boise by the federal government. The original Fort Boise was 40 miles west, near Parma, down the Boise River near its confluence with the Snake River at the Oregon border; this private sector defense was erected by the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1830s. It was abandoned in the 1850s, but massacres along the Oregon Trail prompted the U. S. Army to re-establish a fort in the area in 1863 during the U. S. Civil War; the new location was selected because it was near the intersection of the Oregon Trail with a major road connecting the Boise Basin and the Owyhee mining areas, both of which were booming.
During the mid-1860s, Idaho City was the largest city in the Northwest, as a staging area, Fort Boise grew rapidly. The first capital of the Idaho Territory was Lewiston in north central Idaho, which in 1863 was the largest community, exceeding the populations of Olympia and Seattle, Washington Territory and Portland, Oregon combined; the original territory was larger than Texas. But following the creation of Montana Territory, Boise was made the territorial capital of a much reduced Idaho in a controversial decision which overturned a district court ruling by a one-vote majority in the territorial supreme court along geographic lines in 1866. Designed by Alfred B. Mullett, the U. S. Assay Office at 210 Main Street was built in 1871 and today is a National Historic Landmark. Most native and longtime residents use the pronunciation / ˈbɔɪsiː /; the pronunciation is sometimes used as a shibboleth, as outsiders tend to pronounce the city's name as /ˈbɔɪziː/. Boise is in southwestern Idaho, about 41 miles east of the Oregon border, 110 miles north of the Nevada border.
The downtown area's elevation is 2,704 feet above sea level. Most of the metropolitan area lies on a flat plain, descending to the west. Mountains rise to the northeast, stretching from the far southeastern tip of the Boise city limits to nearby Eagle; these mountains are known to locals as the Boise foothills and are sometimes described as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. About 34 miles southwest of Boise, about 26 miles southwest of Nampa, the Owyhee Mountains lie in neighboring Owyhee County. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 80.05 square miles, of which, 79.36 square miles is land and 0.69 square miles is water. The city is drained by the Boise River; the City of Boise is considered part of the Treasure Valley. Boise occupies a large area — 64 sq mi according to the United States Census Bureau. Like all major cities, it has several neighborhoods, including the Bench, the North End, West Boise and Downtown. In January 2014, the Boise Police Department partnered with the folksonomic neighborhood blogging site Nextdoor, the first city in the Northwest and the 137th city in the U.
S. to do so. Since the app, which enables the city's police and parks departments to post to self-selected localized areas, first became available in October 2011, 101 neighborhoods and sections of neighborhoods have joined. Downtown Boise is Boise's cultural home to many small businesses and a few mid-rises. While downtown Boise lacks a major retail/dining focus like Seattle and Portland, the area has a variety of shops and growing option for dining choices. Centrally, 8th Street contains a pedestrian zone with sidewalk restaurants; the neighborhood has many local restaurants and boutiques and supports a vibrant nightlife. The area contains the Basque Block, which gives visitors a chance to learn about and enjoy Boise's Basque heritage. Downtown Boise's main attractions include the Idaho State Capitol, the classic Egyptian Theatre on the corner of Capitol Boulevard and Main Street, the Boise Art Museum on Capitol in front of Julia Davis Park, Zoo Boise on the grounds of Julia Davis Park. Boise's economy was threatened in the late 1990s by commercial development at locations away from the downtown center, such as Boise Towne Square Mall and at shopping centers near new housing developments.
Cultural events in Dow
Mountain Home Air Force Base
Mountain Home Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation in the western United States. Located in southwestern Idaho in Elmore County, the base is twelve miles southwest of Mountain Home, forty miles southeast of Boise via Interstate 84; the base is used by the Republic of Singapore Air Force, which has a detachment of F-15SG fighters on long term assignment to the base. They undergo training in combat tactics by U. S. airmen. The host unit at Mountain Home since 1972 has been the 366th Fighter Wing of the Air Combat Command, nicknamed the "Gunfighters." The base's primary mission is to provide combat airpower and combat support capabilities to respond to and sustain worldwide contingency operations. Constructed in the early 1940s during World War II as a training base for bombers, after the war it had transports was a bomber and missile base, it became a fighter base 53 years ago in 1966. Part of the base is a census-designated place. Mountain Home AFB is the home of the 366th Fighter Wing.
The mission of the 366 FW is to prepare Airmen and their families and for expeditionary operations and foster an environment that promotes integration of all facets of wing operations. The wing comprises four groups and three operational fighter squadrons: 366th Operations Group 389th Fighter Squadron 391st Fighter Squadron 428th Fighter Squadron Republic of Singapore Air Force366th Maintenance Group 366th Mission Support Group 366th Medical GroupIn addition, the 726th Air Control Squadron gives an air picture to the aircraft as they train. An active Idaho Air National Guard unit, the 266th Range Squadron and maintains emitter sites within the 7,412 sq mi operational training range in southwestern Idaho. Crews started building the base in November 1942 and the new field opened on 7 August 1943. Shortly thereafter, airmen at the field began training U. S. Army Air Forces crews for World War II; the 396th Bombardment Group was the first unit assigned and its planned mission was to train crews for the B-17 Flying Fortress.
However, before the first B-17s arrived, plans for the field changed and the 396th was transferred to Moses Lake AAF, Washington. Instead of training B-17 crews, Mountain Home airmen began training crews for the B-24 Liberator; the first group to do so was the 470th Bombardment Group, which trained at Mountain Home from May 1943 until January 1944, when the unit moved to Tonopah AAF Nevada. The 490th Bombardment Group replaced the 470th and trained B-24 crews until it deployed to RAF Eye England in April 1944; the 494th Bombardment Group replaced the 490th, once more training Liberator crews. The base was placed in inactive status in October 1945; the base remained inactive for over three years, until December 1948, when the newly independent U. S. Air Force reopened the base; the 4205th Air Base Group, was activated on 12 December to prepare the newly re-designated Mountain Home Air Force Base for operational use. Three wings of the Air Resupply and Communications Service used the base in the early 1950s.
In 1953, the base was transferred to Strategic Air Command which assigned its 9th Bombardment Wing to Mountain Home. The 9th relocated to Mountain Home AFB in May 1953, began flying B-29 bombers and KB-29H refueling aircraft; the 9th began converting to the new B-47 Stratojet bomber and the KC-97 tanker in September 1954, keeping alert bombers ready for war at a moments notice and continuing its mission as a deterrent force throughout the Cold War years of the 1950s and early 1960s. In 1959, construction of three Titan missile sites began in the local area; the 569th Strategic Missile Squadron controlled these sites and was assigned to the 9th Bombardment Wing in August 1962. To prepare for the addition of missiles to its bomber forces, the U. S. Air Force redesignated the wing as the pp9th Strategic Aerospace Wing[[ in April 1962. A few years the Strategic Air Command mission at Mountain Home began to wind down, in November 1964, the U. S. Air Force announced. In late 1965, the U. S. Air Force began phasing out the aging B-47 bomber and announced plans to bring the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing to Mountain Home.
The 366th Fighter Wing has been the host unit at Mountain Home for over 35 years, following its return from the Vietnam War in late 1972. Before the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing's arrival at Mountain Home, the 389th, 390th, 391st Tactical Fighter Squadrons had returned from South Vietnam, joined the 347th, began converting to F-111A aircraft. For the first time since it left for Vietnam, the wing once again had its three original flying units. During 1969, a tenant unit began operating at the south end of the base, using part of the original SAC alert area, about half of the Mole Hole alert facility, sharing the other half with an NCO leadership school from the main base. Det. 1, 320 BW carried out an alert mission with two KC-135 tankers. The unit disbanded in the spring of 1975 and returned to Mather AFB. Operations continued unchanged for several years; the wing tested its readiness in August 1976 when a border incident in Korea prompted the U. S. to augment its military contingent in South Korea as a show of force.
The 366th deployed a squadron of 20 F-111 fighters, which reached Korea only 31 hours after receiving launch notification. Tensions eased shortly afterward and the detachment returned home. In early 1991, the Air Force announced that the 366th would become the Air Force's prem
Elmore County, Idaho
