POCATELLO — The Bannock County Historical Society and Museum will be presenting its new Police Evidence Exhibit, at its Holiday Open House on Dec. 15. The exhibit will feature approximately 65 artifacts donated from the Pocatello Police Department’s evidence locker relating to the history of crime and law enforcement in the local area.

    Among the items on display are early 1900s firearms, brass knuckles, old mugshots, antique drug paraphernalia, homemade knives, balls and chains, bootlegging materials from the Prohibition Era and illegal gambling hardware. The exhibit has items from the early 1900s to the 1940s.

    When members of the museum were looking through the paperwork that was donated, they even found a letter from the early 1940s signed by legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The letter was in response for a request for assistance in dealing with a local check forgery case.

    “When most people think of the history of the Pocatello area, they usually don’t think of crime,” said Amanda Preston, the graduate intern at the museum who helped research and assemble the display. “What I hope people will take away from the exhibit is that crime played part of the history of the area.”

    Tabatha Butler, the director and curator of the Bannock County Historical Museum, says that the city’s early days as a railroad town brought with it an underbelly of crime that played an important, if sometimes unseen, part in the early development of Pocatello.

    “Pocatello was founded as a railroad town,” she said, “and there was a time in this area where there was life before law. The first city police department was founded in 1890, which was five years after the first school was built and about 10 years after the city started to develop.”

    Admission to the museum’s Holiday Open House on Saturday, Dec. 15, is free and will run from 1 to 4pm. There will be scavenger hunts for children and the Highland High School Trouveres will perform at 2 pm. The museum will also be presenting changes and additions to its Garrett Freightlines Exhibit and the Fred Cuoio Exhibit.