IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — A new interactive exhibit is teaching the local community about hydropower.
Heritage Park in Idaho Falls welcomed its first historical exhibit with a ribbon-cutting on Thursday afternoon, August 28th, 2025. The park is dedicated to celebrating the city’s cultural heritage.
Idaho Falls Power and INL together unveiled an interactive hydropower exhibit in the park.
“Heritage Park demonstrates a lot of heritage for the city and our community and Hydro’s been part of Idaho Falls city for 125 years. So this is a great place to demonstrate that and showcase that,” said Stephen Boorman, Interim General Manager for Idaho Falls Power.
As part of their joint partnership to promote STEM education in the community, the project invited BYU students to help them with the design.
“The BYU, Idaho team collaborated on how to really design and implement the inner workings of the exhibit so that it would communicate and demonstrate how a hydropower plant actually looks and feels,” said Thomas Moshir, Lead of hydropower research and Manager of Decision Sciences for INL.
Heritage Park offers visitors a view of the real deal hydroelectric dam, and just a few steps away, and with a push of the button, they can see a miniature version of how it all works.
“The original founders of the city, what a vision they had in order to create a power plant here to power our city. And it has continued for over 100 years,” said Lisa Burtenshaw, Idaho Falls City Council president.
Burtenshaw says there will be more heritage stops in the park as it continues to grow. She says the next project is a statue of Rebecca Mitchell, one of the founders of the first school in Idaho Falls.
