Sliding through Soda Springs

The second installment from my recent 35mm slide find features the town of Soda Springs, Idaho on September 28th, 1952 (the slides had this date handwritten on them).

Soda Springs is surrounded by natural springs of carbonated water giving the town its name.  While drilling in 1934 to create a "hot pool" bathing attraction, a geyser was accidentally released flooding the town.  It was eventually capped and is now regulated as an hourly tourist attraction.

One of the things I enjoy doing is trying to determine the location of the slides and postcards I find using Google Street View.  Zooming in on this slide, I was able to read the street sign and determined the location to be the confusingly named corner of First West and West Third streets.

The sidewalk is gone and the landscape has changed.  The only thing confirming the location is the mountain range. That and since First West street is pretty short, this was the only location that could possibly be the location.

This slide wasn't labeled, but zooming in on the building on the right confirmed it was also Soda Springs.

I could read the word "Lodge" on the sign, but couldn't make out the rest.

It turned out to be "The Caribou Lodge" which is still in business and still has that sign, though it's now known as "The Caribou Motel".  The location hasn't changed much.

One location I thought would be easy to locate turned out to be a stumper:

I still haven't figured it out. "Driving" around the town (it's not that big), I couldn't locate a line of buildings that matched this.  A barbershop, a Rexall Drug store, maybe a city hall, possibly a bank and an International Harvester dealership (I recognized the symbol from old magazine ads).  I hoped to find an address for the Rexall drugs or the dealership in an old ad, but the only available I could find were from the pay website newspapers.com (I hate them.  How dare they try to make money off the internet!).  I would have assumed it was a main street (if not "Main Street").  Still, clearly not a busy thoroughfare as a resident walks into the street to stop a car and have a chat.

Why don't you drive around a bit.  Maybe you'll have better luck finding where this is and even find someone to stop and chat with!