Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Ashton, ID

Ashton is a city in Fremont County, Idaho, with a population of 949 at the 2020 census, down from 1,127 in 2010, and it is part of the Rexburg Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Ashton was founded in 1906 and named after William Ashton, chief engineer of the Oregon Short Line, when the Union Pacific decided to build its new railroad through a new town one mile west of Marysville, which then declined into near oblivion.

The Yellowstone Branch railroad was built primarily for passenger service to Yellowstone National Park and the Old Faithful Inn, with aesthetic stone depots at Rexburg and West Yellowstone, and the special Yellowstone Special and Yellowstone Express trains ran to West Yellowstone in the summer tourist season.

Because the railroad north of Ashton was never plowed of snow except in spring, Ashton became the wintertime rail terminus for the entire region.

Beginning in 1910, Ashton was the railhead used for construction of Jackson Lake Dam in Grand Teton National Park, with materials freighted by wagon 56 miles over the Ashton-Moran Road to Moran, Wyoming.

Ashton is home to the world-famous American Dog Derby, whose first race, a 55-mile run down the unplowed Yellowstone Branch from West Yellowstone to Ashton, was held on March 4, 1917, and by 1923 crowds of 10,000 or more thronged the town each February, earning Ashton the nickname of the best known American town in the world.

The district bills itself as the world's largest seed potato growing area, since seed potatoes first tried as a crop in 1920 thrive in the area's short growing season, while long, cold winters clean the soil of potato blight spores each spring.

Ashton sits at an elevation of 5,259 feet and receives about 20 inches of precipitation annually, among the highest in southern Idaho, because the Snake River Plain forms a moisture channel extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Ashton and Yellowstone area.

Ashton is 18 miles from the southwest corner of Yellowstone National Park and 24 miles from Grand Teton National Park, and nearby are Upper Mesa Falls and Lower Mesa Falls on the Henrys Fork and Cave Falls on Fall River, with four outstanding trout streams within 10 miles: the Henrys Fork, Fall River, Teton River, and Warm River.

The city's public schools are Ashton Elementary School and North Fremont Junior High and High School, operated by Fremont County Joint School District 215.