Returning from a brief trip to Montana, our southward route down Interstate 15 took us straight past that other Dubois across the border, in Idaho. I couldn’t resist paying a visit.
This other Dubois is a few hundred yards from I-15. In Dubois, Wyoming, we live about 3 hours from the nearest Interstate–a fact that helps our town to qualify as one of the most remote in the lower 48.
This town is less remote, but nonetheless smaller. Our own “Entering Dubois” sign reads “POP 971.” But the town feels larger than that because many people live outside the town limits, in the mountains. There are no nearby mountains here. Dubois, Idaho, sits in a broad valley of grass and sage.
Some time ago I visited the third Dubois, in Pennsylvania, which is in the midst of mountains. It was named after a local lumber magnate, uses a capital “B” in the middle of its name (as he did), and had a population of nearly 8,000 at the last census.
A sign at the freeway exit for Dubois, Idaho, promises a visitor center, which turns out to be the new rest stop. There are restrooms, of course, but no welcome desk with someone behind it to welcome you. Large glass display cases give information about the region–most prominently the history of the Idaho National Laboratory at nearby Arco (population 995). It’s the site of “the world’s first and the United States’ only fatal reactor accident,” according to Wikipedia, in which 3 people died when an accidental steam explosion destroyed a nuclear reactor.
I’ve been curious about Dubois, Idaho, because understandably some people confuse our Dubois with this Dubois on the other side of Jackson Hole. A tourist once told me that a shop clerk in Jackson told her to stock up on groceries and gas before heading over the Pass to Dubois because there’s nothing there. I had to laugh, thinking of our large grocery store and four gas stations. In this Dubois, the one gas station is boarded up and there’s no supermarket.
There are two motels and two restaurants, one of which got a five-star review on TripAdvisor only last week. I wish I had noticed it myself.
Founded in 1892 and originally named “Dry Creek,” the Dubois in Idaho is 22 years older than the one in Wyoming. This Dubois re-named itself around 5 years later, in honor of the same Idaho senator and Postal Service official who bestowed his own name on our Dubois, rather than allowing residents of a small Wyoming town to use the name they had chosen.
Dubois’ main street ends after a few blocks at this ranch and, beyond it, the train tracks. Trains first came through this area in 1879. I’ve read that there was talk of running a train line through Dubois, Wyoming, long ago, but it never happened.
Without an Interstate and a train we are truly isolated, in one sense. But far more traffic passes through our Dubois, being on one of the two main routes from Denver to Yellowstone. It didn’t seem that many other cars had ventured past the rest stop to explore this Dubois as we did.
I stepped out of the car to take a photo of the water tower, and had a brief chat with two town workers who were mapping water lines, standing inside the stone traffic circle at left. (Another difference: Not being transected by a Federal highway as Dubois, Wyoming, is, I’d guess this town is free to direct traffic flow any way it chooses.)
I asked them about the economic basis of the Idaho town. Agriculture, they replied. Mostly hay and, of course, potatoes.
The Episcopal church was built of clapboard, not of logs like our own. It has become the town museum.
I noticed in passing that Dubois has its own visitor center housed in the small town library, but that was closed as we came through on a Wednesday afternoon.
To reach home before nightfall we had to hurry through Idaho Falls and on toward Jackson Hole. We passed through Victor, Idaho, a booming bedroom community for Jackson, at about 4:45. From that point on, we saw a continuous stream of cars heading in the other direction. These are the commuters who cross the steep and narrow highway over Teton Pass every day.
Speed limits are slow, between 25 and 35 mph. “There are no passing lanes,” someone wrote on a TripAdvisor forum, “so if you get caught behind a slow vehicle, you are pretty much stuck.” RVs and cars with trailers are advised to avoid this route.
My husband shifted to a lower gear as we headed downhill toward Jackson. There are runaway truck ramps every few miles on the 10% grade (one of them, alarmingly, on the opposite side of the road), and trucks are warned to stay in low gear almost all the way to the base on the eastern side. The endless single line of commuters extended almost all the way back into Jackson.
Once beyond Jackson and the construction at the new roundabout south of the airport, we were slowed only by a few out-of-state cars dawdling to look for bison or enjoy the view.
Heading toward our own Dubois and home, we took a new kind of pleasure in the drive over Togwotee Pass, which we always enjoy. This time we noticed the wide shoulders on the highway over this beautiful Pass, the gentle slopes, the broad curves, the 55 mph speed limit, and especially the frequent passing lanes.
Not to mention the splendid views.
© Lois Wingerson, 2018
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“You know, Mom and Pops.”
It’s quiet season now, only a few hunters and retired ranchers stopping by for breakfast. The old guys at the next table were talking about cattle, tractors, and hay. The other folks were quiet.
I’ve always admired the big screen TV at the front of Village Cafe, which features real facts about our history and geography, like this one. So folks passing through can learn a little about the area with their hotcakes and hash browns.
In recent months, I’ve taken the opportunity to speak to several people who have stayed there — a man from Colorado who brings up his truck full of peaches and tomatoes in late summer, and a pair of cyclists passing through from coast to coast.
“I’m so sad to see the end of summer,” friends will say, as the fields turn to gold and the air grows crisp. Not I.
The text and look-and-feel of their poster said it all: Live. Jam. Funk. (Free.) Nothing like our usual laid-back country music band strumming away as a few old-timers shuffle around the dance floor doing the two-step. This looked promising.
Allie and Noah were briskly selling brisket from a food van at the back, which quickly ran out — but nobody seemed to care. There was plenty of the crucial element: beer.
For a brief few hours, we all shared a remarkable sense widespread exhilaration. This is not something I’ve experienced before in Dubois. I may witness others’ joy in beauty, often a sense of relaxation or the peace of rest after hard work, the pleasure of a good, hard hike–but never anything quite like this. Not here.