Meet Dean Dimond

By Camille Daw, Friends of Minidoka Graduate Fellow

One of my most memorable experiences from working at Minidoka National Historic Site as an interpretive intern in 2019 was when the neighbor’s cattle ended up wandering onto the site. I watched as a couple of kids and adults rounded the cows up and got them back to their proper home. Later, I found out that the animals belonged to Dean Dimond, Minidoka NHS’s neighbor. 

Dean has constantly supported Minidoka NHS and Friends of Minidoka. The land that Dean manages was originally purchased as part of the Hermann Farm. In an effort to retain the agricultural integrity that Minidoka demonstrated while confining Japanese Americans, the National Park Service agreed to rent a portion of the land to Dean, who continues to farm the area today. In an unpublished oral history interview, Neil King, the first superintendent of Minidoka NHS, recalled Dean’s contributions to the recreation of a historic guard tower at the entrance of the site. 

Dean also showed enormous support against the Big Sky Farm operations that began threatening Minidoka in 2005, especially because the feedlot would also threaten his own livelihood. The Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) would have caused tremendous impacts on Minidoka because of the proposed 13,000 cows that would be right next to the site. The smell alone would have dissuaded visitors from coming to the site. For Dean, the operation would put him out of the farming business altogether. After collaborating with Minidoka NHS and other neighbors, the Big Sky CAFO operation was dissolved and currently poses no threat to the site. 

However, both Dean and Friends of Minidoka are continuing to fight against the proposed Lava Ridge Wind Project as the wind farm would disrupt the two neighbors significantly. In a KMTV article, Dean commented that Lava Ridge would not only disrupt the viewshed, but the overall atmosphere of the Magic Valley. 

While Dean continues to respectfully maintain his fields and herd as an excellent neighbor of the National Park Service, he also proves to be a major innovator in the agriculture industry. In May, KMTV published an article about “portable corrals,” that Dean was working on developing to assist farmers and ranchers in maintaining their herd. The size and the speed of the portable corrals meant that regaining control of a herd moved much quicker, saving time and energy. 

We want to acknowledge the hard work that Dean and the Dimond family continue to do each and every day. Not only are they a wonderful neighbor to Minidoka NHS, and continue to work with Friends of Minidoka on combating major threats to the site, but they are also a hard working team that puts food on the table for Idahoans across the state.