Early in 1885, a fire wiped out nearly all of the frame shacks along Eagle Rock Street. The following Sunday, residents gathered in the Brewery Saloon where they appointed twenty volunteers to serve as the city's first fire department.

Idaho Falls is the county seat of Bonneville County, which was established in 1911 and named after Benjamin Bonneville (1796-1878), a French-born officer in the U.S. Army, fur trapper, and explorer in the American West.