Welcome To Preston Idaho !

My friend Brian has decided to come with me for a little while on the road and we decided to make a stop in Preston, Id. What is so special about Preston you might ask ? Well it is the inspiration and the filming location for the movie Napoleon Dynamite. Preston is located in the southeast corner of Idaho directly above Logan Utah, and is just to the south of Pocatello Idaho. The population of the town is around 4700 people. From the looks we got from the locals while on our little quest, it would appear that most people there are more than a little sick of the tourists coming into town and snapping photos and asking questions. We tried to be as undisruptive as possible while taking a couple of snapshots and leaving the town just as we had found it.

First on the our list was to find Napoleon's house. We stopped at Big J's burgers which is the the place that Kip and Uncle Ricco were discussing time travel. The old restaraunt has been torn down and turned into some kind of taco/burger/ice cream place, but still has the name Big J's. Here we purchased a map for $1.29 to guide us to some of the places in the movie. Napolean's house was on the outside about 3-4 miles on a gravel road. We stopped to take a photo and the occupants shut the door and curtains as if they didn't want to be bothered. I imagine that they get a lot of that.

On the way back into town Brian noticed that way in the back of a used car lot something familiar. What a site to behold. I looked and there it was Uncle Ricco's van ! We got out to inspect and a man came out and we asked him if it were "the" van. He said that it was indeed but that is was not for sale. We snapped a couple of shots and awat we went.





On our way through the side streets of or town we see Pedro's house which has a for sale sign on the yard that you cannot see in this picture. This is the house that Napoleon tried to do a sweet jump with Pedro's "Sledge Hammer" and crashed hard. Also, this is where he see Pedro with his hood on after he shaved his head.







These are the front steps of Preston High School. Home of the Preston Indians. If you notice some of the kids in the movie wearing Preston high clothing, it's because most of the kids in the movie that were extras were actual students at this school. There were a couple of scenes filmed here but probably the most memorable for me would be when Deb comes up and sits down behind Napoleon and he explains what a liger is and that they are bread for their skills in magic.



This is Brian showing if his sweet tetherball skills. If you notice in the movie the tetheraball in the scenes has a tire at the base and is a few feet to the right in the shots. The custodian working at the school informed us that that particular pole had been stolen shortly after the movie became popular and this permanent one imbeded in the cement took its place. This is one of my favorite shots because you can see the houses in the backround in the movie and it almost identical except the the house in the middle has been painted a little bit different shade.



I have alot more pictures of the trip through Preston but there are way to many to post. We were in formed that they have a festival every year around June 24th-25th and last year brought almost 300 thousand people. From the size of the town it had to be standing room only !


http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/napoleondynamite/epk/index.php Official site
http://www.prestonidaho.org/ Preston city and festival info
http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/HCR029.html Idaho State Legislature praises the filmakers