Pocatello () is the county seat of and the largest city in Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, containing the city's airport. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock County in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho.
As of the 2020 census, the population of Pocatello was 56,320. Pocatello is the 6th most populous city in the state, just behind Caldwell.
The city is at an elevation of above sea level and it sits on the Portneuf River in the Snake River Plain ecoregion. Pocatello covers a land area of .
Pocatello is the home of Idaho State University and the manufacturing facilities of Amy's Kitchen and ON Semiconductor Corporation; it is served by the Pocatello Regional Airport.
History
thumb|Pocatello in 1892, probably photographed by [[Charles Roscoe Savage ]]
thumb|right|View of Pocatello, 1932
Indigenous tribes
Shoshone and Bannock Indigenous tribes inhabited southeastern Idaho for hundreds of years before the Lewis and Clark Expedition across Idaho in 1805. The expedition's reports of the many riches of the region attracted fur trappers and traders to southeastern Idaho. The city is named after Chief Pocatello, a 19th-century Northern Shoshone leader.
Permanent settlements
Nathaniel Wyeth of Massachusetts established one of the first permanent settlements at Fort Hall in 1834, which is only a few miles northeast of Pocatello. When over-trapping and a shift in fashion to silk hats put an end to the fur trade, Fort Hall became a supply point for immigrants traveling the Oregon Trail.
Although thousands of immigrants passed through Idaho, it was not until the discovery of gold in 1860 that Idaho attracted settlers in large numbers. The gold rush brought a need for goods and services to many towns, and the Portneuf Valley, home of Pocatello, was the corridor initially used by stage and freight lines. The coming of the railroad provided further development of Idaho's mineral resources and "Pocatello junction" became an important transportation crossroads as the Union Pacific Railroad expanded its service.
Gate City
After its founding in 1889, Pocatello became known as the "Gate City" for being a gateway to Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. As pioneers, gold miners and settlers traveled the Oregon Trail, they passed through the Portneuf Gap south of town. Stage and freight lines and the railroad soon followed, turning the community into a trade center and transportation junction.
thumb|Advertisement of Pocatello for homesteaders in the Sunset Travel Bureau of Information, April 1910.
Gold rush and agriculture
After the gold rush played out, the settlers who remained turned to agriculture. With the help of irrigation from the nearby Snake River, the region became a large supplier of potatoes, grain and other crops. Residential and commercial development gradually appeared by 1882.
Alameda consolidation
The adjacent city of Alameda was consolidated into Pocatello in 1962, Chubbuck, further north, opposed a similar merger and remained a separate municipality. After a 2015 TED Talk by Roman Mars made Pocatello's flag infamous, the city's newly created flag design committee met for the first time in April 2016, with Mars in attendance. On July 20, 2017, after a year and a half of work by the flag committee, the Pocatello City Council approved the adoption of a new flag with the informal name of "Mountains Left" out of a total of 709 designs.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
A main water feature of Pocatello is the Portneuf River, which runs southeast to northwest on the western side of the city. Since 1992, the city and the Portneuf Greenway Foundation have worked to create a system of trails that follow the river and connect to other trails in the greater Portneuf Valley. Currently, 15+ miles of trails have been constructed with 27 planned total miles.
Climate
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Pocatello has a warm-summer humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps. The hottest temperature recorded in Pocatello was on August 2, 1969, August 8, 1990, July 22, 2000, and July 31, 2020, while the coldest temperature recorded was on February 1, 1985.
|source 2 = National Weather Service