PPT Slide
By 1882, a small concentration of people had gathered along the right of way of the Utah Northern Railway and had formed the nucleus of a small town, Pocatello. The town later expanded as rail activity increased with the formation of the Oregon Short Line, later Union Pacific Railroad. Thus did Pocatello develop by the time of statehood in 1890 as one of the state’s ten leading population centers, all located on railroad lines.
By 1900, Pocatello’s population had reached about 4,000. Churches sprang up, as did businesses and service professions, but the earliest newspaper, the Pocatello Tribune, documents the tremendous difficulties the town faced in creating educational opportunities for the children of the town. Schooling was confined to a few months of the year, buildings were few in number, and teachers were hard to keep because of low salaries.