“The first city in the free world to be powered by nuclear-generated electricity,” Arco (pop. 1,026) sits on the banks of the Big Lost River, so-called because it disappears a few miles downstream, vanishing into the volcanic labyrinth of the Snake River plain. Arco itself, a crossroads town straddling the junction of US-20 and US-93, is a handy stop for food (try Pickles Place, at 440 S. Front Street on the east side of town), gas, or supplies. All over town, signs and historic plaques point out Arco’s connections with the early days of nuclear power.
If you have more than a passing interest in nuclear fission, you’ll want to check out the anonymous-looking redbrick structure 18 miles southeast of Arco on the south side of US-20, which holds the inoperative remains of Experimental Breeder Reactor Number One. Sitting at the edge of the massive Idaho National Engineering Lab (INEL), the deactivated reactor is open for self-guided tours (daily in summer only; free; 208/526-0050), on which you can get an up-close glimpse of the turbines and control room, even the fuel rods that first produced nuclear power on December 20, 1951. (To put all this in context, the first reaction produced enough electricity to power four small lightbulbs.) By 1953 the reactor here was finally able to produce more power through nuclear reactions than it consumed, a much more important achievement. Some 50 years later, INEL is now one of the nation’s de facto repositories for nuclear waste, and will remain so for the foreseeable future—12 million years or so, by some estimates.
