The city of Blackfoot is located near the center of Bingham County, on the south side of the Snake River.

[8] The origin of this accusation, written many years after the event, was a Blackfoot newspaper editor named Byrd Trego.

The battle for county seat between Eagle Rock and Blackfoot was a political tug-of-war involving sectional and anti-Mormon factions in the Idaho Legislature.

The leader of the southeastern Idaho anti-Mormons was a Yale graduate named Fred Dubois, who settled in Blackfoot in 1880.

The legislative maneuvering to overturn Eagle Rock as the county seat naturally left "disparaging rumors intimating some skullduggery on Blackfoot’s part.

"[9] Frederick S. Stevens and Joe Warren were the first permanent white settlers of record in Bingham County.

[10] In 1866, Stevens and Warren filed claims in the Snake River Valley near the present-day location of Blackfoot, where they started farming and ranching.

To create a place of safety for the scattered settlers when they feared Indian trouble, Mr. Warren outfitted his cabin with holes between the logs where men could stand guard, day or night, until the natives left the neighborhood.

[12] When the Utah and Northern Railway signed contracts to expand north into Idaho in the 1870s, some of the settlers laid out a town on the Shilling and Lewis homesteads.

[16] The goal was finally realized in 1886 when Alfred Moyes planted the first shade trees in the Upper Snake River Plain around the Blackfoot Courthouse.

[18] Others in town followed suit and within a few years Blackfoot's tree-lined streets had a reputation that earned the nickname "Grove City."

Sightseeing excursions from the surrounding area were reportedly organized so they could "feast their eyes on this verdure," which stood in pleasant, stark contrast with the endless acres of dry, gray sagebrush.