FOREWORD A history of the Idaho potato industry must necessarily be different from histories of wars, politics, people, and nations even though all of these have had their affect. The history of Idaho® potatoes involves such unlikely events as a man sifting through the soil of his garden for one lost pod from a potato plant, volcanic eruptions that took place in Western America millions of years ago, and the development of highly sophisticated pumps that can lift water from great depths in the earth to irrigate potato fields.

In certain ways, the mighty Snake River is the mother of Idaho's potato industry. It has, through the centuries, transported and deposited much of the silt that farmers cultivate today in lower-lying fields along the river course. It provides much of the water that makes possible the growing of a plant that needs soil moisture of 80 percent for ideal growth. As it plunges a mile downward in elevation along its course, the Snake generates electrical energy that makes pumping from deep wells possible, and most of the potato-growing areas in the state lie contiguous to the Snake River Valley as it twists its way in a 550-mile arc across southern Idaho.

Although natural history has greatly affected the Idaho potato industry, the vision, the decisions, and the hard work of thousands of people have, in the end, made possible the establishment, growth, promotion and the future of the industry. The visionaries, the gamblers, the innovators, and the leaders stand tall in shaping the development of the industry and their names have a place in its history.

Unfortunately, time has taken most of the pioneers, and the information of their struggles, discoveries, triumphs, and disappointments must come from family members and what documentation is available. Like all histories, this one searches for the milestones, the unusual, the significant and must by necessity omit persons and events that have played parts of importance.

Individuals who have additions or corrections to make may send their information and documents to the Idaho Potato Commission for possible inclusion in later revisions of this history of the Idaho potato industry.