Is there anything really wrong with being called an Idaho redneck? Sure, every state has them. While they might be defined with a different criteria in other states, there’s plenty of them all over Potato Land.
Plus, we’ve heard Idaho is almost 100% rednecks of some variety. I mean, you guys have more guns than kids. And have you ever heard this joke:
Did you hear that the governor’s mansion in Idaho burned down?
Almost took out the whole trailer park
All jokes aside, we post the question: What is a redneck anyways? Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is:
“A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.”
Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, fish, drink, smoke and shoot things. And shop at Walmart.
Using that criteria, it’s not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where the most members of the Idaho redneck family tree most likely live. Most of these places probably won’t surprise you.
Because, the data never lies, does it?
So, hold our beers and watch this. After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in Idaho:
Read on below to see where your town ranked.
For more Idaho reading, check out:
What redneck criteria did we use?
In order to rank the most redneck cities in Idaho, we had to determine what criteria makes a redneck.
We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used:
The dictionary definition categories
- Small towns
- Least amount of high school graduates
And the stereotypical categories
- Number of bars per city
- Number of mobile home parks per capita
- Number of tobacco stores per city
- Number of places to get fishing gear
- Number of guns and ammo stores per city
- Walmarts, Bass Pro Shops, and dollar stores nearby
Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a city’s border, as well as within a short driving distance.
Additionally, high school graduation rates factor in the total town’s graduation rate, not the number of graduates from the high school every year.
1. Salmon
Population: 4,608
High school graduation rate: 78%
Bars per capita: 7th in Idaho
Dollar stores per capita: 10th
Whoo-whee, Salmon! You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of Idaho! You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls.
Let’s see why. Whelp, first off, rednecks sure like to throw back some cold Busch Lights. And in Salmon, you guys have almost more bars per capita than anywhere else in the state. Nothing’s more redneck than sitting around the bar all afternoon, talking about when rut’s gonna hit.
And, did you know Salmon is home to the annual wolf and coyote hunting derby? There’s nothing more redneck than that.
When you consider that nearly 1 in 4 people here never graduated high school, what you’ve got is a little slice of redneck heaven about 10 beers southwest of Butte.
2. Burley
Population: 10,157
High school graduation rate: 68%
Fishing/bait shops per capita: 8th in ID
Walmart rank: 6th
Yes, siree, there’s plenty of rednecks in the boonies around the Burley area, that’s fer damn sure.
Just the name of the town sounds necky.
Every good redneck town has to have a Walmart, and Burley has one all to themselves. For a redneck, that’s like short lines at Disneyland.
In fact, Burley’s Walmart is right along the banks of the Snake River. That means they can just walk in barefoot and grab whatever it is the fish are bitin’ on that day. Shoot, they can probably just open up the tailgate and throw in a line from the Walmart parking lot.
You can really tell who wasn’t studying. Burley teens, that’s who. That’s okay; with so many hunting and fishing distractions in the area, you can’t really blame them.
3. St. Maries
Population: 2,568
Chew factor: 6
Trailer parks per capita: 6th in ID
Per capita, there are almost more trailer, mobile home and RV parks in St. Maries than anywhere else. Rednecks love nothing more than sitting out by the fire, plugging rounds into the bug zapper.
And the number of tobacco stores per capita – what we refer to as the ‘chew factor’ – is sky high here. Burley’s is a 6. That means you ain’t runnin’ out of chew, that’s for sure.
St. Maries is way out in the boonies. If you want to see ‘em, take Route 3 south off of I-90 for a while. Look for the big pile of beer cans and the underwear frozen to the clothes line.
And bring duck tape. They’re out.
4. Ponderay
Population: 1,287
Gun stores per capita: 3rd in Idaho
Fishing/bait shops per capita: 1st
Walmart rank: 1st
They’ve got everything a redneck could ever want out in Ponderay, right along the banks of Lake Pend Oreille in the panhandle. Fishing, hunting, their very own Walmart…a redneck baby could grow up into a redneck dad and never have to leave Ponderay their entire lives.
Some probably don’t.
5. Jerome
Population: 10,757
High school graduation rate: 61%
Chew factor: 10
Walmart rank: 4th
Wow, Jerome. Just think – had you guys studied even less as kids, you might have won this whole thing. When 4 out of 10 of you guys decided that blowing stuff up and getting stuck in the mud was more ‘fun’ than sitting in some math class on Monday morning, we can tell you guys know how to whoop it up redneck style big time.
That’s okay. We’re actually a little envious. Kinda sounds like fun.
6. Kamiah
Population: 1,400
Gun stores per capita: 5th in Idaho
High school graduation rate: 73%
Dollar stores per capita: 3rd
Way, way out on Route 12 east of Lewiston is the little necky town of Kamiah. They figured goin’ to class was a bore, too. But don’t make fun of their education. See, they have some gun stores in the area, and you can be sure they know how to use them.
Nothing’s more pissed off than a drunk redneck. Say the wrong thing in these parts, and you just might get some britches full of lead.
7. Homedale
Population: 2,631
High school graduation rate: 59%
Gun stores per capita: 10th in Idaho
Bars per capita: 10th
Almost half of Homedale residents didn’t get a high school degree. And that’s not even the lowest in the state. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of blue collar jobs (or any jobs, actually) in the area.
When you’re driving through, be sure to be on guard. You can bet there’s lots of shells flyin around here at all hours. Especially during hunting season.
You can bet lots and lots of Homedale folks spend a lot of their time along the Snake River. Apparently these parts have some of the best dry fly fishing in the country.
You can probably smell the fish fryers all the way to Nampa.
8. Victor
Population: 2,631
Gun stores per capita: 6th in Idaho
Bars per capita: 4th in Idaho
Chew factor: 3
Victor is way down by Wyoming, not too far from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The area around here might be the most isolated in the state.
They’re surrounded by mountains out here. You can bet the deer, bears, squirrels, coons and possums practically walk right up to their front room windows in this part of the state.
Rednecks are darn good shots. Vermints have no chance in hell anywhere in this area. None at all.
9. Challis
Population: 1,304
Mobile home and trailer parks per capita: 8th in Idaho
Bars per capita: 7th
Fishing stores per capita: 7th
Take Route 93 out of Idaho Falls, and you’ll eventually come to a rednecky town called Challis.
Down on Main Street in Challis, Idaho, you’ll find Bux’s Place. And at the bar at Bux’s Place, you’ll find several rednecks, throwing back Coors Lights, talking about things that rednecks talk about.
You know, NASCAR, who shot their limit last fall, who has the loudest truck.
You can bet yer’ chickens that sounds like the kind of place that’s worth stoppin’ by for a bit.
10. Weiser
Population: 5,469
High school graduation rate: 67%
Bars per capita: 5th in ID
Chew factor: 9th
Weiser has plenty of places to drink and smoke, and they have a dollar store. So there’s no excuse for showing up to a Weiser barbecue empty handed.
But if they want to go to Walmart, they have to gas up the truck and rumble into Oregon. That’s only for special occasions, like when the cousins from Salmon are coming into town.
By the way, Weiser, it’s never too late to work on your GED. And that doesn’t stand for Get ‘Er Done, either.
There You Have It
According to the official dictionary definition of a redneck, and based on stereotypes that the internet says are true, using science to determine the most redneck cities in a state can’t be too far off. If you’re analyzing smaller cities in Idaho with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, fishing, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list.
If you’re curious enough, here are the least redneck cities in Idaho (if that’s even possible):
- Chubbock (Pop. 13,773)
- Iona (Pop. 1,679)
- Osburn (Pop. 1,663)
- Preston (5,162)
- Sugar City (Pop. 1,270)
We also wrote a story on the worst places to live in Idaho if you didn’t happen to see it. Click that link to read it.
