The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of Boise Valley Todd Shallat Boise State University, [email protected]
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Boise State University ScholarWorks Faculty Authored Books 2016 The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of Boise Valley Todd Shallat Boise State University, [email protected] Colleen Brennan Molly Humphreys Boise State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/fac_books Part of the Public History Commons Recommended Citation Shallat, Todd; Brennan, Colleen; and Humphreys, Molly, "The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of Boise Valley" (2016). Faculty Authored Books. 482. http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/fac_books/482 The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of Boise Valley is volume 7 of the Investigate Boise Community Research Series. This document was originally published by Boise State University. Copyright restrictions may apply. The Other Idahoans The Other Fallen angels in the bawdy houses. Migrants barred from Main Street. Homesteaders driven from homesteads when August rained black storms of dust. The Other The Other Idahoans Idahoans recovers their hard-luck stories. Volume 7 of Boise State University’s prize- Boise the Valley of Stories Forgotten winning research series, the book closes with a driving tour of storied places from history’s underside. “The vulnerable and marginalized helped build the Boise Valley. The Other Idahoans, in recalling their lives and labors, enriches our understanding of the cities we inhabit today.” – CORY COOK, DEAN, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE Forgotten Stories of the Boise Valley Investigate Boise Community Research Series The Other Idahoans Forgotten Stories of the Boise Valley INVESTIGATE BOISE COMMUNITY RESEARCH SERIES BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY VOL. 7 2016 The Investigate Boise Community Research Series publishes fact-based essays of popular scholarship concerning the problems and values that shape metropolitan growth. VOL. 1: Making Livable Places: Transportation, Preservation, and the Limits of Growth (2010) VOL. 2: Growing Closer: Density and Sprawl in the Boise Valley (2011) VOL. 3: Down and Out in Ada County: Coping with the Great Recession, 2008-2012 (2012) VOL. 4: Local, Simple, Fresh: Sustainable Food in the Boise Valley (2013) VOL. 5: Becoming Basque: Ethnic Heritage on Boise’s Grove Street (2014) VOL. 6: River by Design: Essays on the Boise River, 1915-2015 (2015) VOL. 7: The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of the Boise Valley (2016) ROBERT LIMBERT PAPERS, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, BOISE STATE PAPERS, LIMBERT ROBERT 2 3 The Investigate Boise Community Research Series publishes fact-based essays of popular scholarship concerning the problems and values that shape metropolitan growth. VOL. 1: Making Livable Places: Transportation, Preservation, and the Limits of Growth (2010) VOL. 2: Growing Closer: Density and Sprawl in the Boise Valley (2011) VOL. 3: Down and Out in Ada County: Coping with the Great Recession, 2008-2012 (2012) VOL. 4: Local, Simple, Fresh: Sustainable Food in the Boise Valley (2013) VOL. 5: Becoming Basque: Ethnic Heritage on Boise’s Grove Street (2014) VOL. 6: River by Design: Essays on the Boise River, 1915-2015 (2015) VOL. 7: The Other Idahoans: Forgotten Stories of the Boise Valley (2016) ROBERT LIMBERT PAPERS, BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, BOISE STATE PAPERS, LIMBERT ROBERT 2 3 Todd Shallat, editor Colleen Brennan, managing editor Molly Humphreys, research associate Toni Rome, graphic designer Corey Cook, dean of School of Public Service BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY School of Public Service 1910 University Drive – MS 1900 Boise, ID 83725 [email protected] (208) 761-0485 sps.boisestate.edu/publications About the cover: A fallen angel glows in the orange light of a Boise bordello. Frontispiece: William “Doc” Hison at his Snake River homestead. Opposite: Idaho children on a New Deal farm resettlement project, 1936. Next: Riding the rails, 1935. Generous support was provided by the Patricia Herman Fund and Professor Emeritus Errol D. Jones. ISBN: 978-0-9907363-4-9 2016 U.S. FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION FARM U.S. 4 5 Todd Shallat, editor Colleen Brennan, managing editor Molly Humphreys, research associate Toni Rome, graphic designer Corey Cook, dean of School of Public Service BOISE STATE UNIVERSITY School of Public Service 1910 University Drive – MS 1900 Boise, ID 83725 [email protected] (208) 761-0485 sps.boisestate.edu/publications About the cover: A fallen angel glows in the orange light of a Boise bordello. Frontispiece: William “Doc” Hison at his Snake River homestead. Opposite: Idaho children on a New Deal farm resettlement project, 1936. Next: Riding the rails, 1935. Generous support was provided by the Patricia Herman Fund and Professor Emeritus Errol D. Jones. ISBN: 978-0-9907363-4-9 2016 U.S. FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION FARM U.S. 4 5 Contents Preface .................................................................................8 Todd Shallat 1 Boise’s Forgotten Pandemic ..........................................10 Headstones mark the city’s deadliest virus. Mistie Rose 2 Dollar a Day .....................................................................18 Mobs rioted against Japanese workers on the Oregon Short Line. Julie Okamura 3 Unfit for Habitation ........................................................28 Paupers and the elderly labored at the county’s poor farm. Namanny Asmussen 4 Hammer and Drill ..........................................................36 A gold mine recalls the grueling work of dangerous jobs. Emily Fritchman 5 Razing Levy’s Alley .........................................................42 Civic leaders crusaded against prostitution. Nicholas Canfield 6 Women Behind Bars ......................................................50 Vulnerable women paid poverty’s price. Ceci Thunes 7 God and Reclamation ....................................................65 Farmers waited decades for water. Roy Cuellar Gallery: Out of the Dust .................................................74 8 Nazis on the Homefront ................................................84 Boise Valley farmers enlisted prisoners of war. Susan Hook 9 South of the Tracks .........................................................94 Housing segregation isolated the marginalized. Pam Demo 10 Hard Times at Chula Vista .......................................... 107 Braceros made community in Wilder’s migrant camps. Anna Webb ........................................... 122 Hard Places Driving Tour ...................................................... 135 Credits and Sources U.S. FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION FARM U.S. 6 7 Contents Preface .................................................................................8 Todd Shallat 1 Boise’s Forgotten Pandemic ..........................................10 Headstones mark the city’s deadliest virus. Mistie Rose 2 Dollar a Day .....................................................................18 Mobs rioted against Japanese workers on the Oregon Short Line. Julie Okamura 3 Unfit for Habitation ........................................................28 Paupers and the elderly labored at the county’s poor farm. Namanny Asmussen 4 Hammer and Drill ..........................................................36 A gold mine recalls the grueling work of dangerous jobs. Emily Fritchman 5 Razing Levy’s Alley .........................................................42 Civic leaders crusaded against prostitution. Nicholas Canfield 6 Women Behind Bars ......................................................50 Vulnerable women paid poverty’s price. Ceci Thunes 7 God and Reclamation ....................................................65 Farmers waited decades for water. Roy Cuellar Gallery: Out of the Dust .................................................74 8 Nazis on the Homefront ................................................84 Boise Valley farmers enlisted prisoners of war. Susan Hook 9 South of the Tracks .........................................................94 Housing segregation isolated the marginalized. Pam Demo 10 Hard Times at Chula Vista .......................................... 107 Braceros made community in Wilder’s migrant camps. Anna Webb ........................................... 122 Hard Places Driving Tour ...................................................... 135 Credits and Sources U.S. FARM SECURITY ADMINISTRATION FARM U.S. 6 7 Preface An antique tractor swings from a crane into the bowels of the 7-acre Simplot compound rising between Myrtle and Front streets in downtown Boise. Jack’s Urban Meeting Place, or JUMP, features 52 turn-of-the-century tractors; also classrooms, roof gardens, an amphitheater, a recording studio, a dance studio, and a five-story tubular slide. Only once, in the lobby, does JUMP tribute its founder, but J. R. Simplot is ever-present. Jack’s tractors recall the agrarian roots of Idaho’s industrialization. JUMP also embodies the American romance of farm boys from humble beginnings who made more money than they knew how to spend. JUMP’s crane shadows the freight yard where risk-takers of another sort once labored for the Oregon Short Line. Young men from Japan who emigrated via Hawaii slept in company boxcars. To the south near the river’s floodplain were blacks and dark Europeans in a “colored town” of Jim Crow housing. Nearby, along Front and Grove, were flophouses that boarded young women abandoned by spouses and boyfriends. Mothers with infants found cots in the county poor farms. Others became sex