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Gooding County was
created by the Idaho Legislature on January 28, 1913 by a partition
of Lincoln County.
Named for Frank R. Gooding,
pioneer sheep rancher, early mayor of the city of Gooding,
later Idaho Governor and U. S. Senator. Mountain men and fur traders
trapped the Malad River extensively in the early 1800s. Settlers
came to the rich agricultural lands of the Hagerman Valley in the
1860s. The county seat
is located in the City of Gooding.
The county
contains the cities of Bliss, Gooding,
Hagerman and Wendell.
The County has a population of over14,461. Gooding County has
been one of the fastest growing and prosperous counties in South
Central Idaho. The economy is increasingly influenced by the dairy
industry, and growth has been strong in the last decade. Although
unemployment was very high in the early 1990’s, the dairy influence
and cheese factories have stabilized unemployment and now Gooding County often
has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. Gooding County also
is one of the largest trout producing areas in the United. The
scenic Thousand Springs and the temperate weather of the City of
Hagerman make tourism a significant industry with boat trips,
fishing, and other water sports. Per capita income has grown
steadily in Gooding County,
and it is higher than the state average. Gooding County is
entirely on the Snake River Plain, north of the Snake River. Thus
all the rocks are Miocene and younger, with Quaternary basalt
covering most of the county.
In the north the Gooding
City of Rocks, carved from Miocene rhyolite ignimbrites of the Twin
Falls Volcanic Field, forms the south flank of the Mount Bennett
Hills. Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, itself located on the
west side of the Snake River in Twin Falls County,
has its headquarters in Hagerman. Malad Gorge, a narrow canyon cut
by the Wood River in the last few hundred thousand years, is a
unique feature of southern Gooding
County. |
