Historic Chesterfield

The story begins in 1879, when Chester Call and his kinsman Christian Nelson set up a horse ranch on this high ground above the Portneuf River, along the route the Oregon Trail had worn across southern Idaho. Within a year or two Latter-day Saint families followed and began building a proper town, and it took Chester Call's name: Chesterfield. They laid it out on the broad, square grid their church favored, with generous lots and straight streets, and set about farming the surrounding benchland.

The colony grew steadily through the 1880s and 1890s into a settled farming community, and by about 1920 it had reached its height at roughly seven hundred residents. It was one of hundreds of towns that Latter-day Saint pioneers planted across the Great Basin and the Intermountain West after reaching the region, and few of them survive today anything like as whole as Chesterfield.

The building everyone remembers is the meetinghouse, a dignified brick church raised between 1887 and 1892 that still anchors the townsite. Around it stand the amusement hall built in 1895, where the town gathered to dance and put on plays, and the tithing office and granary from 1900, where farmers brought a share of their harvest. Many of the homes are brick too, built between the mid-1880s and about 1904, and some carry the tidy lines of Greek Revival or the fancier trim of the Queen Anne style, unusual craft for so remote a place.

Mixed in among the brick are hewn-log cabins from the earliest years, so you can read the whole arc of a frontier town on a single walk, from a settler's first one-room cabin to the substantial brick house a prosperous farm family built a generation later. Something over two dozen original buildings survive on the old grid, enough that the streets still feel like streets rather than a scatter of ruins.

Two things undid Chesterfield. When the railroad came through, it followed the valley past Bancroft to the south instead of climbing to the plateau, so trade and new arrivals gathered down there rather than up here. Then the hard farm economy of the 1920s and the dry, difficult seasons that followed made a living on the high benchland harder and harder to hold. The school closed in 1941 and the general store held on until 1958, and by then Chesterfield had become a ghost town.

Its very remoteness saved it. Because nothing replaced the old town and no new development rolled over it, the buildings simply stayed, weathering in place. In 1980 the whole townsite was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a foundation of descendants and volunteers has worked ever since to stabilize the meetinghouse, the cabins, and the homes, so that a visitor today walks through an almost intact 19th-century pioneer village rather than a memory of one.

Chesterfield lies on the plateau about eleven miles north of Bancroft, and roughly forty minutes north of Lava Hot Springs by road, reached at the end by gravel. The last stretch is easy in dry weather but can turn to mud after rain, and the roads are not kept up in winter, so aim for a fair-weather day and top off water and fuel in town first, since there is nothing on the plateau itself.

In the summer season the foundation opens the village for guided walking tours, often led by people whose own great-grandparents lived here, and a small museum in one of the old brick buildings fills in the rest of the story. Give yourself an unhurried hour or two to walk the grid, step into the meetinghouse, and look closely at the cabins and homes. It is the kind of quiet, honest place that rewards slowing down, a real town the frontier built and then let go, still standing on its windy plain for anyone willing to drive the gravel to find it.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is a place we chose through independent editorial review, never a paid placement.

Historic Chesterfield, in a remote valley of southeastern Idaho near Bancroft, is a preserved Mormon pioneer ghost town, a collection of historic buildings from a farming community founded by Latter-day Saint settlers in the late nineteenth century. Once a thriving village, Chesterfield was gradually abandoned over the twentieth century, and today its remaining brick and wooden buildings, including homes, a church, and a store, have been preserved and restored, offering a evocative glimpse of pioneer life on the Idaho frontier. Set in a quiet rural landscape, it is a fascinating historic site. With its preserved pioneer ghost town, Historic Chesterfield offers a fascinating destination in Idaho.

You can walk among the preserved and restored historic buildings of the pioneer ghost town, including homes, a church, a store, and other structures, learn about the Mormon settlers who founded and lived in the community and their frontier life, take in the quiet rural setting, and photograph the evocative old buildings. The preserved pioneer town and its history are the focus, offering a peaceful, atmospheric look at the past. It is a rewarding stop for history lovers. With its restored pioneer buildings and frontier history, Historic Chesterfield offers an engaging and evocative visit in southeastern Idaho.

Historic Chesterfield is typically best visited in the warmer months from late spring through fall, when the rural roads are clear, the weather is mild, and any seasonal interpretation or tours may be available, while the remote site can be hard to reach in winter snow. Summer and fall are pleasant in the quiet valley. Checking current access and any tour or open-building hours before you go is wise, as it is a remote historic site. For the best access and weather, aim for late spring through fall at Historic Chesterfield in southeastern Idaho.

Chesterfield was gradually abandoned over the twentieth century as economic and social changes drew residents away from the small, remote farming community, a fate shared by many rural pioneer towns, until the village was largely deserted. Rather than being lost, however, the historic buildings were preserved and restored through community efforts, saving the ghost town as a window into pioneer heritage. Its abandonment and preservation together tell a story of frontier settlement and its passing. This history of a rise and quiet decline makes Historic Chesterfield an evocative and meaningful site in southeastern Idaho.

Historic Chesterfield is in a remote valley of southeastern Idaho near Bancroft, within reach of the Soda Springs area with Hooper Spring and the captive geyser, Lava Hot Springs, Pocatello with the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and the Bear Lake region. That makes Historic Chesterfield a fascinating stop to combine with the Soda Springs area, Lava Hot Springs, and the other attractions of southeastern Idaho on a visit to the state.