The new “I”, above and to the left of the original location.

The iconic “I”, now once again on Red Hill after a 5-year absence, was not always an “I”. Actually, nothing was on Red Hill when ISU began as the Academy of Idaho in 1901.

Pocatello High School has changed many times since the original section of the present building was constructed in 1892. That eight-room, sixty-four-foot square, rusticated stone structure, is the central part of the present main building on the 300 block of N. Arthur Avenue.

Bannock Hotel as planned in 1919

Simplot Square on the southwest corner of Center and Arthur in Old Town Pocatello was once the site of the Hotel Bannock, one of the tallest buildings in the city.

There is a history lesson in the streets of Pocatello.

The town plat, created in 1889 when Benjamin Harrison was president, quartered the town by Center Street, going east/west and the railroad tracks running northeast/southwest.

Harry S. Truman in 1948

Did you know that several Presidents of the United States or presidential candidates visited Pocatello during the last century?

Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), the creator of the Tarzan of the Apes series of novels that have been popular in movies, radio, comic books, and television since early in the twentieth century, once lived and worked in Pocatello, Idaho.

Pocatello made a significant contribution to the United States and Allied victory in World War Two. The Naval Ordinance Plant (NOP) and the Pocatello Air Base were established shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 which caused the United States entry into the war.

The ISU Arch was the entry to the first building on the ISU campus, known as the Academy of Idaho in 1902. The original building was expanded by a wing on the west end in 1905 and another on the east end in 1910.

During early decades of the 20th century, the campus front was on Carter Street and the entrance of the Academy faced 7th Avenue, where it meets Carter on the north side of the current lower campus.

The columns on Red Hill were the main features of the McHan Funeral Home (later McHan-Henderson) on South Arthur in old town for fifty years. The business, established in 1916, was demolished in 1966 when it relocated to N. 15th Avenue as Henderson (now Cornelison) Funeral Home.

The Vocational Arts Building (VA), one of the oldest buildings at ISU, was originally named the Vocational Building and Hangar. It was constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) between 1936 and 1939 in a style now known as WPA Rustic (a combination of neo-classical and art deco architecture, strongly influenced by the American craftsman style).