Forgotten town fights for economic growth

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Story Published: Jul 17, 2009 at 4:22 PM MST

Story Updated: Jul 17, 2009 at 5:19 PM MST

By Steven Pope

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RIRIE - The city is hoping that Ririe Days will bring some needed revenue in through tourism, and attract business back to the area.

"The purpose of the Ririe Horizons is to help reduce poverty, to just put Ririe on the map as a place people knew about," said Eric Bennion.

Eric and the city hope tourism will stir economic development in place of the county fair which has since moved away.

"In the old days we have residents in the community who remember when the county fair was here and they miss that," said Bennion.

Ririe is one of Idaho's forgotten railroad towns, making it difficult to lure in new businesses.

"I've had people that I've passed through from Idaho that ask me when they see I'm from Ririe, where is that, and how do you even pronounce that, it's an Idaho town, but a lot of people don't remember that it's here," said Bennion.

The city of Ririe didn't even have a grocery store for four years, because it went out of business when the Twin Bridges collapsed. It's video we caught on tape live in 1997.

Despite the bridge rebuild, people had already formed the habit of going to a different store. 1-Stop Pavilion is trying to attract northern communities like Archer back to Ririe.

"We do have a lot of poor people, we have an older community, but I think if we can incorporate the outlying areas there's a lot of new people and a lot of new homes," said Delayne Adams, the 1-Stop Pavilion owner.

"it's a bedroom community, there aren't of actual jobs here, there's a few agricultural jobs and a few jobs here and there, overall there isn't a lot of striving economic business going on like you would see in Rexburg or Idaho Falls."

The Ririe days begin tomorrow with a marathon starting at 7am followed by a car show, a craft fair, and even an archery shoot.

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