Pocatello is pre-eminently a railroad town, and to the railroad she owes her birth as well as her growth. When the westward course of the Oregon Short Line crossed the tracks of the Utah & Northern railroad, some fifty miles south of Idaho Falls, then called Eagle Rock, a hamlet naturally sprang up at the junction. This was in the heart of the Fort Hall Indian reservation, but the railroad had a grant of some two hundred acres for its right of way, upon which it allowed settlement, and upon which, in 1882, it erected the Pacific hotel and station. Shoshone had been selected by the railroad officials as a division terminal, but there being some dispute relative to the town-site, they determined upon Pocatello instead. In 1887 the town received a further impetus in the removal thither of the shops from Idaho Falls, which brought several hundred men, many of them with families, into the hamlet. For the accommodation of this addition, the railroad company built what is today known as Company Row. One of the most historic buildings in the city is the two-story frame house to the left of the west end of the Center street viaduct. In the days when buildings were scarce and the little available space overcrowded, this building, now used for office purposes, served as a public meeting hall. Portneuf Lodge, No. 18, A. F. & A. M. was organized here in 1886, and met in the building for some time. In the late eighties the building was used for public school purposes, and in 1891 as the fire hall. At various times it has been used as a church, a theatre, a pool hall, and within its walls were held many a church fair that helped to build the present city churches, and many a dance that lives yet in the memories of the older members of Pocatello society. The city council also used it for a meeting place. Although there was no land open for settlement, there quickly grew up a typical frontier town, “wide-open,” as the saying is, where excitement ran high, where vice went unashamed, and where saloons and gambling knew no closing hours nor Sunday laws. At last the demand for more room became so insistent, that the United States government purchased two thousand acres of reservation land from the Indians, to be used as a town-site. This was surveyed in 1889, and the following year lots were sold at auction at prices ranging from ten to fifty dollars. At that sale the foundation of many comfortable fortunes of today were made. Already some buildings had been erected, and it was feared that the purchase of their sites by other parties might cause trouble. But the squatter’s right was honored, and the man who had built a store or home was allowed to secure a title to his holdings. The community was organized into a village during this year, with H. L. Becraft as chairman of the board of trustees, and D. K. Williams, A. F. Caldwell, L. A. West and Doctor Davis members. Another tract of reservation land was opened for settlement in 1905.