15 Of The Tiniest Small Towns in Idaho
Personal space is big for Idahoans and good thing the state gives us plenty of it. From fam lands, to all of the natural beauty. There is lots to explore. Idaho has some of the smallest towns in the US, some so small you may miss them completely when driving by.
These miniature towns give us more insight in our history, some are now just plain ghost towns and in some, when visiting you feel like you are in launched back in time yourself. Some of these baby towns are sooooo small they aren’t even thoroughly recorded by census data so these are the best estimate for the most recent populations, I used the latest data available from data commons and used Wikipedia and Only in Your State for the interesting little tidbits.
15. Castleford (Pop. 246) - Home of Balanced Rock, an incredible natural landmark, and other unique rock formations. Bet you didn't know that it is also ranked regularly as having one of the best school districts in the state.
14. Bloomington (Pop. 209) - Bloomington is in the southeast corner of Idaho. This historic town dates back to 1864.
13. Malta (Pop. 203) - Named after the Mediterranean island between Tunisia and Sicily, Malta is a middleground between Idaho and Utah.
12. Moore (Pop. 171) - The city of Moore was originally named Verbeck, but according to the stories a man who's last name was Moore, painted it on a piece of wood and nailed it outside to make sure he got his mail, people started using it as the towns name and it stuck.
11. Elk River (Pop. 123) - Built by the Potlatch Timber Company. An old logging town that once was bustling with a population of 1300.
10. Huetter (Pop. 109) - One of the only cities with no mayor for a long, long time. I couldn't even find when the last time they had a mayor was.
9. Leadore (Pop. 103) - Like Elk River, Leadore was once a thriving town although now it is more of a ghost town.
8. Hamer (Pop. 101) - Named after a United States Representative from Idaho named Thomas Ray Hamer, who passed in 1950.
7. Hope (Pop. 96) - Between Clark Fork and Sandpoint, Sitting beautifully on Lake Pend Orielle, Hope is one of Idaho's most artistic communities. Visitors use Hope for artistic inspiration.
6. White Bird (Pop. 94) - A lot of Native American history here. The Battle of White Bird Canyon took place here in 1877.
5. Placerville (Pop. 55) - Ghost town yet again, but it was once a busy mining and supply town with thousands of residents and tons of visitors.
4. Spencer (Pop. 32) - In Clark County and known as the "Opal Capital of America"
3. Drummond (Pop. 17) - So close, or pretty much right on the Montana boarder, so much that some still debate if it is actually in Idaho.
2. Clayton (Pop. 8) - Its peak was in the late 1920s when Ford Motor Company expanded and moved their mining holdings here and built homes for employees. Now it is more of a small passerby stop.
1. Warm River (Pop. 3) - The water-saturated clay soil originally made this community hard to develop. It seems like it never really took regardless. The few locals do benefit from freshwater.