Niter Ice Cave

Just past the town of Niter, a 100 yard detour to the east will lead travelers to Niter Ice Cave. The Niter Ice Cave was used by early pioneers as a year-round refrigerator, keeping a temperature dozens of degrees cooler than outside. The Cave was formed when basalt lava flowed out of a vent 500 thousand years ago forming a lava tube typical to this type of volcanic activity on the Snake River Plains. The Niter cave is actually a piece of a lava tube system that would have gone on for miles thousands of years ago.
  This Cave was important to early settlers and native Americans for food storage. John A. Dalton, the original homesteader, and his family used the Cave for that purpose as well as a refuge from encounters with unfriendly native Americans.