Bonneville County is part of the Idaho Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Today, Bonneville County stretches up from two desert floors through a fertile valley of plush crops and into heavily forested peaks.

During all of this time, and even before people started making boundaries and setting up towns, villages and governments, there was a rich part to the region.

Indians roamed much of the county in travels to Camas Harvest, and in 1808 John Corter came through the area.

In 1810, Major Andrew Henry saw the country, and in 1832, the man whose name was later to be immortalized by the institution of the county, Captain B.L.E.

It was about this same time, 1870, that Caribou City also sprang up and Eagle Rock, the forerunner of present-day Idaho Falls, began to acquire a population.

There was a time during this growth and settlement period when it appeared Caribou City would outgrow Eagle Rock.

Before the coming of the railroad, Matt Taylor bought and trailed a herd of cattle into the valley.

In 1902, Mark Austin surveyed the possibilities and recommended that a sugar factory be built east of Idaho Falls.

The Utah and Northern Railroad Company made Eagle Rock a division point, built maintenance shops and the town grew.

In 1887 the railroad shops moved to Pocatello, leaving Eagle Rock almost a ghost town.

With the development of irrigation, the town took on a new life and it became the most important shipping point between Ogden, Utah and Butte, Montana.

On August 26, 1891, the name of Eagle Rock was changed to Idaho Falls due to the cataract in the river on the west edge of the city.

Idaho Falls was on its way and headed for a future that would one day see it as headquarters for an atomic energy installation; but in the year of 1900, it was still a city under the control of Blackfoot.

[5] The Snake River flows northwest through the Bonneville County, beginning at the Wyoming border as the Palisades Reservoir.

The river exits the county about midway on its northern border, turns and re-enters approximately 20 miles (32 km) west to flow southwest through Idaho Falls.