I wasn’t expecting much from my visit to Idaho Falls but as I was on foot exploring downtown I caught a glimpse of what looked like the word “oddities” in a shop window. I crossed the street to get a closer look and to my delight was an oddities shop and “dime museum”.
Julie Oliver is an Idaho Falls native who spent her childhood watching horror movies with her parents and had an older brother who was into heavy metal. As a result Julie definitely has an attraction to the macabre and a collection of unusual things.
She opened her shop Shaddow Domain – “Curious Things for Curious People” in 2002. It’s located in an historic building built in 1903 that was once home to a brothel. A photo of the building from the early 1900’s with a naked prostitute on a balcony hangs on the wall in the shop.
They have a range of occult supplies, oddities, taxidermy and novelty items for sale and a section of the store serves as a dime museum. The first piece she acquired for it was a glow in the dark vampire bust when she was a kid. The bust sits inside of a case that is full of items that she has purchased from eBay, estate sales as well as items friends have given her. She said it’s pretty common for people to leave stuff outside of the shop for her or for people to give her an item that they believe should be displayed in her shop. She has a collection of antique medical devices and one of her favorite pieces from the collection is a pair of contact lenses from the 1940s.
I asked Julie if she had any pieces of her collection at home and she said no, she feels that they should be on display for everyone to enjoy.
Long Days 
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