Behind the Business: Minidoka County Historical Society Museum

RUPERT, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — This week’s Behind the Business takes us to the Minidoka County Historical Society Museum.

The Minidoka County Historical Society Museum works to bring the history of southern Idaho alive.

“Well, the purpose of it is so we don’t forget our past, I think young people tend to forget how far we’ve come,” said Rick Parker, president of the Minidoka County Historical Society Board.

The museum features a large variety of displays, everything from an old soda counter to a historical telephone, agriculture equipment, fossils and more, almost everything in the museum was donated.

“I have this really nice soda fountain that was from Hall’s Confectionary over in Paul, Idaho and that was done in 1926, we have a tack room that was put together by Ray Stockton and it features lots of items that would have been used in homesteads or ranches and farms,” said Amber Bateman, the secretary of the Minidoka County Historical Society Board.

One of the main points in the museum is highlighting the agriculture community.

Last year they opened up an extension to the museum called the Minidoka County Power Museum, which shows how far we have come with our machinery.

“We have a number of pieces of equipment that was used in the past, many of them were used to build the canals around here, and they were horse-drawn pieces of equipment. Some of them were one row potato diggers or two row beet pullers, so we’d like people to see those and realize that it was a lot of hard work,” said Parker.

Every year they invite all the county elementary school fourth graders over to tour the museum and learn more.

Right now they are working on adding a new section to the museum catered towards the kids.

It’s called the learning center.

“We want to encourage something so we can have children come, there will be a learning center with hands on activities, that will feature something to help them understand the development of the area here, maybe some stem activities, so that they will have something to do that will enhance their creativity,” said Parker.

The museum is free and largely run by volunteers, while Minidoka County helps run the museum.

It is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and is located at 99 East Baseline Road in Rupert.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to visit.

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