Meteorites are not what most people expect to find a few steps from a row of old sandstone cellblocks in Idaho. Inside a modest building, rocks glow under ultraviolet light, a wall-sized map shows every ridge in the state, and a resident geologist will gladly tell you what that odd stone in your garage really is.
Admission costs nothing, which makes the discovery even sweeter.
A Rock House Beside Old Walls
Old sandstone cellblocks draw most of the crowds on the east end of Boise, but a modest building next door holds a different kind of history. Inside, the Idaho Museum of Mining and Geology packs the story of the state’s rocks, minerals, and mines into rooms you can cross in a minute.
Don’t let the small footprint fool you. The museum centers on two big questions: how Idaho’s landscape took shape over millions of years, and how people pulled wealth from the ground here…