Cambridge, ID

Cambridge is a Washington County city in western Idaho, where the 2020 census counted 335 residents. Its history begins as a crossroads: a wagon train led by Tim Goodale camped in the area in 1862, and the settlement of Salubria grew around an old Native American trail and the supply trade for mines in the Cuddy Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Seven Devils, and Mineral districts. The railroad arrived in 1900, officially establishing Cambridge and turning it into a regional supply point.

ATTRBobjgalindo / CC BY-SA 4.0

U.S. Highway 95 now runs through the city, while State Highway 71 heads northwest toward Brownlee Dam and the Snake River. Cambridge Joint School District 432 provides local schooling, and the city museum occupies the 1905 Jewell Building, the only timber-frame building left in a downtown rebuilt in brick after fires between 1900 and 1926. Cambridge also served a second generation of western projects: a CCC camp operated here in the 1930s, and the city later supplied workers and materials for Brownlee, Oxbow, and Hells Canyon dams. Its streets join mining routes, railroad history, school life, and the modern Hells Canyon corridor.