Irrigation and hydroelectric power stations built on the falls were major contributors to the early economic development of southern Idaho.

The best time to view the falls is between April and June, when snowmelt is peaking, and when water is released from upriver reservoirs to assist steelhead migration.

[13] Most of the rocks underlying the Snake River Plain originated from massive lava flows related to eruptions of the Yellowstone hotspot over many millions of years.

[15] The immense Snake River Aquifer is formed in the region's porous volcanic rock and recharged each year by melting snow in the surrounding mountains.

Spring flow varies widely depending on the season, although it has increased since the 1950s due to irrigation water on the surrounding plain percolating into the aquifer.

Due to this marked difference, the World Wide Fund for Nature uses Shoshone Falls as the boundary between the Upper Snake and the Columbia Unglaciated freshwater ecoregions.

[24]: 257  Because the falls are the upstream limit of salmon migration in the Snake River, they served as a central food source and trading center for the native peoples, who fished with willow spears tipped with elk horn.

The 1811 Wilson Price Hunt Expedition, whose goal was to scout routes for the growing fur trade, traveled down the Snake River as far as Caldron Linn, a wild rapids located near present-day Murtaugh.

Although the party explored the canyon for several miles downstream, Hunt's journal does not mention any waterfalls as large as Shoshone Falls.

[27] The routes they pioneered became part of the Oregon Trail, which brought many emigrants from the eastern United States to the Shoshone Falls area.

[28] Over the next thirty years, American and British-Canadian fur trappers hunted throughout south-central Idaho and are believed to have observed Shoshone Falls.

[30] None of his party observed the falls, however, because they left the river canyon (probably near Murtaugh) and cut southwest across a sandy plain to reach Rock Creek.

They camped about a mile below what Frémont called "Fishing Falls": "a series of cataracts with very inclined planes, which are probably so named because they form a barrier to the ascent of the salmon; and the great fisheries from which the inhabitants of this barren region almost entirely derive a subsistence commence at this place.

[33]: 121 [34] Early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans were generally friendly, but eventually brutal conflicts broke out over land ownership.

"[38] He was also the first to speculate that the falls and canyon, rather than being formed by erosion over millennia, might have been created by "moments of great catastrophe" considering the region's chaotic volcanic history.

[48] In 1883, the Oregon Short Line Railroad was extended to Shoshone, making travel to the falls much easier, and Walgamott sold the land to "a syndicate of capitalists including Montana Senator William A. Clark, who intended to replace the hotel with a far grander establishment and to place a recreational steamship on the river.

[51] Ira Burton Perrine arrived in the Shoshone Falls area in 1884 and initially homesteaded at the bottom of the Snake River Canyon, where he raised cattle and planted orchards.

[52]: 23  However, Perrine is best known for his role in the economic development of southern Idaho based on massive irrigation projects, and consequentially, the periodic drying of Shoshone Falls.

Although this would have been impermissible in other parts of the western U.S., due to regulations such as those under the Homestead Act which limited each settler's claim to 160 acres (65 ha), Perrine's project fell under the boundaries of the 1894 Carey Act, which allowed private companies to construct large-scale irrigation systems in desert regions where the task would be far too great for individual settlers.

[53] Perrine proposed the diversion of the Snake River at Caldron Linn, a point approximately 24 miles (40 km) upstream of Shoshone Falls.

"On March 1, 1905, Frank Buhl gave a ceremonial pull on the wheel on a winch and the gates of Milner Dam were closed, and the gates to a thousand miles of canal and laterals were opened, and the Snake River was diverted, and that night Shoshone Falls went dry as the water rushed across the desert far above, and Perrine's vision was realized, and 262,000 acres of desert were shortly transformed.

"[55] The reclamation of vast tracts of desert into productive farmland practically overnight led to the regional moniker of "Magic Valley".

In part due to the intervention of World War I, which resulted in short supply of iron, the rail line was never completed as planned.

Knievel and his team purchased land on both sides of the Snake River and built a large earthen ramp and launch structure on the south rim.

A crowd of 30,000 gathered on Sunday afternoon to watch Knievel's jump,[61]: 595  which failed because his parachute deployed prematurely, causing him to float down towards the river.

Knievel, from Butte, Montana, likely would have drowned were it not for canyon winds that blew him to the river's south bank; he ultimately survived with a broken nose.

[62][63] In September 2016, professional stuntman Eddie Braun successfully jumped the Snake River Canyon in a replica of Knievel's rocket.

The trails provide access to nearby points of interest including Dierkes Lake and Evel Knievel's 1974 jump site.