The city of Blackfoot, in Bingham County, Idaho, claims the title, Potato Capital of the World.
Indeed, in an average year Bingham County’s 1177 farms produce 57,000+ acres of potatoes. Now that’s a lot of baked potatoes!
What’s in the Idaho Potato Museum?
You can’t miss the Potato Museum, as you’re greeted by a giant sculpted potato topped with fake sour cream and butter.
Inside, the Potato Museum takes you back through the potato’s history, right to its origin in the Andes Mountains of South America where potatoes were cultivated since about 200 BC.
Indeed, the museum has various artifacts representing the Andean “Potato God.”
However, the first potatoes in North America likely came to Virginia in the 1620s after they were taken to Europe from Peru by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1589.
According to the museum, nearly all of the potatoes grown in Idaho are Russet Burbank variety and likely originated from a single seed ball discovered by Luther Burbank growing in his New England garden in 1872.
Tools in the Potato Museum
While there are lots of professionally prepared information panels, the Idaho Potato Museum is definitely not a read-it museum. Indeed, there are all kinds of tools and pieces of equipment that have been used over the decades to plant and harvest potatoes.
For example, the original potato scoop for moving potatoes from cold storage to market was more or less a pitchfork married to a shovel.
In 1958, though, Carl and Leo Hobbs invented a potato scooper they called the Spudnik (named after, you guessed it, the Russian Sputnik space mission) that was much more modern.
Fast Facts From the Potato Museum
- Early peoples in Peru used a freeze and squeeze process to dehydrate potatoes similar to what we use today
- The average American eats approximately 110 pounds of potatoes every year
- Bill Brocklesby’s collection of 177 potato peelers (from as far back as the 1940s) were donated to the museum
- Potatoes are often a second crop, following a grain harvest
And of course, who can forget Mr. Potato Head, the lovable toy from the 1950s. Born in 1952, Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television!
Linda’s Pick of the Exhibits
My favorite exhibits were the machines used to plant and harvest potatoes. While I didn’t do a lot of garden work as a kid, I do remember planting potatoes as being the thing I liked the least. And as an adult, that’s even more true as it seems to me to be back-breaking work!
Of course, coming from a farm background also increases my interest in the machines we’ve used over the centuries to feed the world.
The Inca foot plow was one of the earliest tools used. And it was just a few pieces of wood strapped together with leather bindings. The image below shows some of the later equipment.
Linda’s Road Trip Tips
We stopped at the Idaho Potato Museum on a trip through the state on I-15.
Lunch was in Cedric’s Restaurant in Idaho Falls after we visited the Museum of Idaho there.
I can highly recommend their fried cheese curds and a scone — what could be tastier?
From Blackfoot, ID, we continued on I-15 to Pocatello, ID, and the Clean Museum, which is another must-see stop on this route! We stayed the night in Brigham, Utah, at the Crystal Inn Hotel & Suites Brigham City, which was very comfortable. From there, it was only 25 mi (40 km) to the amazing Hill Aerospace Museum in Ogden, Utah, on I-15.
Who Should Visit the Idaho Potato Museum?
The Idaho Potato Museum is a should see museum for anyone traveling I-15 through the state of Idaho — while you may think of a museum about potatoes as just another novelty, it’s far from it. It’s a must see stop for anyone interested in agriculture and growing their own produce.
No matter your age, you’ll find the potato history and the evolution of the equipment used to farm it interesting. There’s lots to keep the youngsters interested, which is always a plus.
This isn’t a large museum, so takes only an hour or so to visit.
How To Visit the Idaho Potato Museum
The Idaho Potato Museum is right off interstate I-15, in the town of Blackfoot, ID, at 130 NW Main Street. The museum is open year round, as is their Potato Station Cafe (while we didn’t try the baked potatoes, they looked amazing!)
Check the hours and admission rates at the Idaho Potato Museum website.
Learn more about happenings at the Idaho Potato Museum on their Facebook page.
Plan your visit now with Google Maps. If you enjoyed this article, please pin it to share later.
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Reference(s)
Potatoes USA. (n.d.). Potato history and origin. https://potatogoodness.com/potato-fun-facts-history/
guide2museums.com 