Have You Been to Moss, Idaho?

This might age me, but it was during the MySpace days that I remember wondering: what in the hell is Moss, Idaho? Any time it would share a location from my account, I would always be tied to a so called "Moss".  I distinctly remember this being the tag I would see on my Twitter account, too. I grew up in Nampa and never understood what about Nampa meant "Moss" on social media platforms.

This isn't anything that I would normally remember or think about until I was scrolling through Twitter over the three-day weekend and noticed that someone's tweet was geotagged to this "Moss, Idaho" place as well.  After digging around, it turns out if you hover over Nampa in say, Google Maps, at the right distance, you will see "Moss" as a labeled area.  Google search this mysterious place and you will be directed to a parking lot on the Nampa-Caldwell Boulevard. Check out the image, below:

This drove me crazy all weekend and if you're a Nampa kid like myself I can almost guarantee you've seen this place geotagged before. After doing a little digging, I learned that The Idaho Press actually investigated this same question several years ago and apparently, this "Moss" location is a common one for many in Canyon County.

The Idaho Press discovered that "Moss, Idaho" was once the midway point between Nampa and Caldwell and was named for a local rancher. While it isn't a city itself, it seems that marker has held on through the years and somehow, major online mapping engines still recognize it.

Do you know anything else about Moss, Idaho? Odds are, if you've driven the boulevard, you've driven right by it...or, through it, without even knowing.