“Historic Land Use in the Treasure Valley: A Changing Landscape” Presentation for COMPASS by: Barbara Perry-Bauer, The Arrowrock Group, Inc. Idaho Historical Museum, Boise, ID May 25, 2005

[Terri Schorzman, COMPASS]: Welcome. This is the first presentation of a series that COMPASS is holding, called “Planning our Future.” We are offering these things for several reasons. One of the reasons we are offering these is that we have heard from so many people in the past year about their concerns and issues regarding growth and transportation. So we would like to respond to the needs and in doing so hope that we keep you engaged in the planning process, Communities in Motion and Blueprint for Good Growth. It is also part of COMPASS’ broader goal of communicating and disseminating information in a clear and concise manner; we deal with very technical issues and technical work and we want to make sure that the public is engaged at every level that is clear and understandable. We are starting this evening with a topic Historic Land Use in the Treasure Valley: A Changing Landscape. We are doing this to provide an overview of growth and change over the past decade. The late Daniel Boorstein, a former Librarian of Congress and historian, said that, “Trying to plan for the future without knowing the past is like trying to plant cut flowers.” This is our opportunity to understand our region historically as a fully rooted plant.” Our speaker this evening will provide that content. Barbara Perry-Bauer is a historian with expertise in community in local history, historic preservation, and environmental history. Before co-founding The Arrowrock Group over a decade ago, she held positions as the Director of the Basque Museum of Cultural Center in Boise, Collection Manager at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. She has participated in numerous historic site surveys and documentation projects, directed a living large scale survey in Ada County and Historic neighborhoods in Boise, Caldwell, and Pocatello. Ms. Bauer is currently writing a book titled History of South Boise: A Historic Neighborhood and has co-authored A Pattern of the Past: Ada County’s Direct Site Inventory, which came out several years ago. She holds a master’s degree from Boise State University. Welcome, Barbara. [Barbara Perry-Bauer] I wanted to thank COMPASS for asking me to do this talk and always need to thank my sister who is my business partner and who encourages me to get up here and talk to all of you. This is going to be a thumbnail sketch and overview of Ada [County] & Canyon County. There is so much information out there that I wanted to talk about but trying to compress it into something that would fit into an hour was rather difficult. So, I am hoping this gives you an idea of why our communities are placed where they are throughout the area and why growth may have occurred where it did and also why things like irrigation are so important to the area and transportation important to the area. I hope that you will get all of that out of my talk. Before I finish the other people I would like to thank are all of the local historians out there. So much of the information that we get about our local history comes from people that are interested in our community. People like Lila Hill who has written, The History of Meridian. Annie Lori Bird who is a long time resident from Nampa wrote about My Hometown. All of those local histories provide so much information if you are interested in your community. I hope that this thumbnail overview of local history of Ada and Canyon Counties will intrigue. I am open to questions after I am done speaking. I think that is goes without saying that the Boise River is probably the most important feature for development of our valley. The Boise River provided Native Americans with water that supplied fish for food and the Valley provided grasses for grazing and shelter. Fur trappers followed the river for beaver and portable water. The Hudson Spade Company established Fort Boise at the confluence of the Boise River with the Snake River. It was used from 1834 to 1854 as a trading post and it was a stop on the Oregon Trail, eventually it was abandoned. Discovery of gold in 1862 on the Boise Basin northeast of the Boise Valley brought an influx of miners into the region. In 1863, a new Fort Boise was constructed at the crossroads of the Oregon Trail and the road to the Boise Basin mines. The new fort attracted settlers and at the end of 1864 there were 100 residents in the Boise area. Throughout the southwestern mining region during the summer of 1863 there were about 19,000 miners in the southwest Idaho mining region. They were coming to the area by stage and were freighting supplies by way of Walla Walla and Salt Lake City. I always like to talk a little bit about Cyrus Jacobs. Cy Jacobs was one of the earliest settlers in Boise. He came here as a merchant and he had connection in Walla Walla [Washington], so when Fort Boise was established it was really a prime spot for him to start his business. Cy Jacobs Uberagga House of course is known to many of us as the Basque Museum and Cultural Center. The house was built in 1864. The front of the house is the original structure and the addition was put on in 1878. One of the reasons I like to show this picture is because when we talk about a changing landscape, I think a lot of us tend to think of Boise and the settled areas around us being filled with trees and very lush. As you can

2 see in the late 1870s it wasn’t quite like that. Palmer Jacobs (Cy Jacob’s son) was an early settler of the Kuna region. This photo is about from 1878 and this shot is in the early 1900s. It is interesting to see how the growth of the vegetation and things occurred at that time. Julius Morrow, who was an immigrant on the Oregon Trail, commented on passing through Boise in the fall of 1864. “When we first came in site of Boise City and the valley, we were upon a hill seven miles distant, considerable timber exists along the banks of the river. There were ranches and fields of grain some in shock and some standing ready for reapers. Such scenery to us is beautiful in the extreme, when compared to the hundreds of miles we have traveled over so baring and desolate. This slide, shows Ezra Meeker, he came across the Oregon Trail in the 1850s and later in the century he ended up traveling the Oregon Trail again because he realized the importance of preserving it, since it was a pathway that brought so many immigrants west and of course changed the environment and landscape out here. This is the wagon that he traveled across the Oregon Trail on. He did it three times; he also did it by automobile and airplane. As settlers were coming to the Boise area, of course they settled near the river bottoms where there was abundant water, which was easily accessible and they were able to irrigate their farmlands. This is the Joseph Bown House is southeast Boise. Joseph Bown exemplified some of those early settlers to the Boise valley. Like Jacobs came to the Boise valley in 1860s he was here by 1865. Like many others he first tried his hand at mining. When that didn’t pan out he turned to farming and ranching. He originally homesteaded 160 acres which then grew to 280 acres. His family first lived in a log house and by 1872 he constructed a large two story stone house. I think that the amazing thing about Cy Jacobs is that he poured the stone from the quarry of the Old Pen (Old Penitentiary, off Warm Springs Blvd). To get there he had to make a 12-mile round trip, because there was only one bridge across the river. They lived there until the early 1890s when they then moved up to a location by Cole School and several other families lived there over time. The Bown house is on the property of Riverside Elementary School [of the Boise School District] and in the early 1980s there was talk that the house was going to be demolished and torn down. There were very energetic concerned citizens that got together [Idaho Historic Preservation Council] and were able to save the house and it is now used for local history interpretation; fourth grade students go there where they have wonderful displays and other things in the house. To the east of this property it was all open space, until about two years ago when the area began under development. I took this photo probably about six years ago and this is the changes that we are seeing all over the Treasure Valley. There is a new development there called Bown Crossing, they say it is

3 the new heart of southeast Boise. This is a commercial development that has been planned and they are mimicking the architecture of the house and of course they are keeping the Bown name because it is a very recognizable name now. Settlers came to the Boise valley they acquired land in several different ways. I think this is important for us to know because this helps us understand why people came to settle in the Boise valley. Some of them acquired land under what was called the preemption act. This was before there were government surveys. Under this act people could choose a piece of land, build a house on it, and make other improvements to the property without have legal ownership of the land. Once the land was surveyed by the government and offered for sale the settlers could lay legal claim to this act and purchase up to 160 acres for $1.25 an acre. In 1862 congress passed another act, the Homestead Act, which was made available to any family or person who was a U.S. Citizen or has filed a declaration to become one. Quarter sections, 160 acres of land were distributed free, but the property had to be worked and you had to live on it for five years. Such land could also be purchased after six months for a $1.25 an acre, but the Boise valley and its semi arid region proved to be unsuitable for these small homesteads and the outlying desert plain would remain unsettled until irrigation projects changed the landscape. This is actually a shot over in south Boise, this is on Lincoln Ave. This is the Tate family who came to the area in the 1880s. This house was actually dismantled in the 1917 to make way for a newer building. In the 1870s Congress passed the Timber Culture Act of 1873, this was an interesting attempt to increase humidity on the semi arid land on increasing tree planting. Settlers could increase the number acreage that they claimed if they promised to plant 40 acres in trees. The number was later dropped to ten. One of the early settlers who claimed land under the timber act was David Geckler; another settler who came to Boise in the 1870s who laid claimed to 160 acres and built a barn and a house with adobe brick. This eventually turned into the property on which Triangle Diary sits. This is a shot of the farm that he homesteaded. This is an aerial view from 1961. This photo was taken in 1988; the area has been developed into apartments. The adobe house that he constructed in the 1870s and the barn are basically a few reminders that we have in southeast Boise of the early ranching and farming era. A lot is being diverted from the Boise River even as soon as settlers came. Thomas Davis filed the first water right in Boise and dug a canal for irrigation to his property along the Boise River. The need for irrigation was obvious, and at the end of 1863 individuals and cooperatives had several irrigation projects in the work and there were cooperative canal companies in the valley with 21 miles of

4 canal. Other ditches in the valley lead to the settlement of Middleton and Star. In 1864 the Middleton Mill Ditch began to carry 1200 inches of water and by 1900 it was 20 miles long and supplied 3000 acres and even ran a flour mill. As a result Middleton became one of the early settled areas in the valley. I think that sometimes today we tend to think as communities as being set in boundaries. We think about county lines and we think about town lines, but at this early period people didn’t think about communities in that same manner. I think it was the later developments of highways and other things that have caused us to think about where we live in a different way. Star was another community which was founded due to irrigation. In 1864, a group of farmers in the central part of the valley organized the Pioneer Ditch Company. They began construction of a canal that was designed to carry 2000 inches of water for irrigation. This is the store and the Star post office. The story is that Star got its name from somebody that didn’t quite know what to call it and they identified a building with a red star on the front of it and so that is how Star got its name. The settlement of land under all the various canal projects was amazing. Census records indicate that the Boise Valley barren of any white settlement in 1862 had over 19,000 acres of improved land in 1870 and there were about 2,600 people in the Valley and by 1880 that figured had grown to about 4,000. Numerous irrigations systems throughout the valley spread continued settlement. The Ridenbaugh Canal first begun in 1867, it was intended to irrigate the first bench above the river. It was begun by a fellow named, Alexander Rossi. It was later sold to William Morris, who was a businessman and an entrepreneur who eventually claimed over 17,000 acres of land and quickly began to enlarge the canal. He died suddenly and his nephew, William Ridenbaugh took over the system and continued to expand the canal westward. The Ridenbaugh Canal was the largest pre-federal project in the Boise valley. By 1891, there were 100 miles of ditches and 153 miles of laterals. In some of the work that we do we tend to work a lot with transportation engineers and canals of course are sometimes in the way of roads. I think that we need to realize that most of us wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of those canals that criss-cross the area. This is a shot of the Ridenbaugh Canal, this was taken somewhere in the 1930s. This is a view looking to the east of Tablerock. Whenever I can, if I find a site that I know is the same I try to go back and photograph it again. By the 1890s, Boise has grown from 10 city blocks to being a major city. It was the site of a territorial capital and numerous businesses. This is a great map this is one of my favorite maps, this is from 1887 and this shows how Boise City is laid out at that time. I find it a little confusing however, because I believe that we are actually looking to the south and it looks like there are really big foothills to

5 the south and I don’t often see those from my window. To put everything into perspective, if you go to the right side of the map and you see the loop that would be the racetrack at Fort Boise. The drawings around the outside are the businesses and some of the residential houses that were in that area at that time. This is Boise City’s main street and this is the oldest photograph of the City of Boise. This is Main Street; the blurry things in the middle of the picture are people on horseback and people on stages. In the Boise Valley after the land along the river bottoms had been settled, these settlers looked to the higher bench lands. The Timber Cultural Act and the Desert Land Act made settlement on the bench land possible if the capital for building expensive projects could be located. This was going to come in the form of investors, mainly from the east who invested in irrigation ventures throughout the Boise Valley. This is one of my favorite shots. This is along Barton St. on the bench above the City of Boise. I am not quite sure who the family is but I am dating this to about the 1880s. Eastern investors were being attracted to the area not only because of irrigation but by the coming of the railroad to the treasure valley. The 1881-1884 construction of the Oregon short line railroad which linked the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad to the Pacific Northwest opened up the possibility of a national market for valley crop. In addition, successful gold placer mines along the Snake River caused some New York investors to cover the cost of developing a canal through the production of placer gold. The canal would feed the new farmland but could also be used to work the Snake River placers. This is actually the Oregon short line this is going over the Snake River to Huntington, Oregon. In addition to those successful gold placer mines along the Snake River a lot of the investors were intrigued by this whole idea of irrigation. Arthur Foot was engaged as the engineer on the project they called the New York canal. Along with his wife, Mary Halleck Foote who is a noted illustrator and author made Boise there home for many years. This is a photo that shows the Foot’s home in the canyon, so we are actually looking east towards Idaho City. If you look in the corner of the photo on the right hand you can see the lava rock building there. There is still evidence of that structure, which is over by Sandy Point [across Lucky Peak Dam, to “Foote Park”]. The New York canal would not be completed until the early 1900s due to bank failures and litigations over water rights. I really believe that you cannot overlook it as a driving source of bringing people to the area and changing the areas landscape. This is actually a later photo after federal money was invested into the project, and these people are scraping the canal out.

6 Prior to completion of the railroad, people in freight were transported by stages and wagons. Stage lines were established between Idaho City and the Owyhee mines in 1964, and toll and wagon roads spread as the areas of population grew. The area around Caldwell was homesteaded by farmers and ranchers, but the railroad brought small businesses and promoters to formally establish the town in 1883. The town was named for Senator C. A. Caldwell who owned and planted the town site. Water was coming to the surrounding area in the form of the Dixie Canal and the Seegreen Canal which was also known as the Farmer’s Cooperative Canal. This is an early shot of downtown Caldwell. The Howard Seegreen Company was merchandise and was also a developer in the area. Caldwell grew rapidly and became a supply center for surrounding farms and villages and for mining districts in the Owyhee’s. Within a year Caldwell had 600 residents, numerous businesses, and a public school. Nampa’s development was similar to Caldwell, the Oregon Short line passed through Nampa in 1883 and within a few short years the town site of Nampa was platted. It was going to take irrigation to transport Nampa into an agricultural center. This is an early shot of Nampa. This is 1890, and of course when more irrigation came to the area then developers were looking of ways to promote the land. D.E. Burly, for whom Burly Idaho was named, was a really big promoter and often posted these types of ads in newspapers throughout the Midwest. This is the Phyllis canal that brought water to Nampa. The railroad didn’t run tracks through Boise; it was too difficult and expensive to go the line down the bluff into the city. So the tracks were extended to west of Caldwell. It would be many years before Boise was on the main line of the railroad company. That was going to be a bonus contention for many years for Boise citizens. In 1882, the railroad established a construction camp at a stage station where the road to Silver City crossed the railroad right-of-way. It was originally a stage station and the railroad named it Kuna. Until 1887 the Oregon Short line built a branch line from Nampa to Boise. Visitors to Boise would depart the railroad and use other forms of transportation to get to Boise. Mary Halleck Foot wrote of her impressions of Kuna. “No one remembers Kuna, it was a place where silence closed after the buffalo be-trained, where a soft dry wind from great distance, hummed through the telegraph wires, and stage road. A stage road went out of site in one direction, and a new railroad track in other. There was not a tree in sight for miles and miles.” Kuna would remain a quiet railroad site until the early 1900s, when the promise of water brought settler’s to the area.

7 This is an 1887 map of Ada County and as you can see Ada County extended all the way up to Middleton, and I wish this image was a little clearer because you would be able to see the irrigation canals in here where people settled and also the railroad lines where people settled in Nampa and Caldwell. I think especially when we are looking at our communities and how we are growing today, that trying to connect the communities that are on different sides of the river. People were going different ways at the time those communities were planned, so the network of roads that they had served them well. It is interesting to me because it seems like trying to get Locust Grove to go over North/South and to get these other road to go North/South has been quite a challenge. Locust Grove was a community in and of itself. Five Mile Road was a community in and of itself. As more people moved to the Boise Valley many were coming to Boise and subdivisions and additions were platted to accommodate the growth of the community. The first addition in Boise was platted in 1878 by Dennis Dwight Arnold. It didn’t really take off until after the 1890s. Growth in the Boise Area brought one of the four most development teams to Boise. Walter E. Pierce, Lindly Cox, and John Haines they came to Boise like many other people did by way of Kansas. They first developed the Ressequie addition in the North end and then they moved on to develop additions throughout Boise and the Boise valley. They also platted additions in Star and Bruneau. They were involved in a myriad of interconnected activities that drove development in the Boise Valley. I think that they do think that developers do today, say platters developed amenities that would attract the buyers. Pierce was instrumental in developing Hyde Park in the North end. He also developed parks near his subdivisions. Other developers were also talking about amenities that they had. This ad for the east side addition talked about the hot water and of course the fact that if you were on urban line you got an electric part of 15 minutes. South Boise addition was platted until after 1892 when the Broadway bridge was built. It was actually platted by investors in Colorado. At that time some of the earliest farms in south Boise were already being subdivided. So, it wasn’t an uncommon thing to have 160 acres already being broken up into city size lots as wells as 5 and 10 acre lots. Another developer in the area was John Lemp, he was a Boise businessman who had a brewery, and also owned a settler ditch. He developed subdivisions throughout Boise, including the Lemp Triangle in the Northend. This is one of my favorite photos also, this is taken about 1912 and there are houses under construction in the Lemp Triangle which was roughly the area of 12th and Alturas St. Take a close look of the photograph and I found these same houses today. I think it is kind of interesting to

8 see and what we have done with the vegetation, tree, we have really changed the area around us in a really short time. Boise valley entered a new century which was still dependent on agriculture for an economic base. There was a rhyme about the Ridenbaugh Canal and it said, “Where ever the Ridenbaugh ran, people settled for land.” Subdivisions and additions were being platted in Caldwell at the same time and this was the Doorman additions. Henry Doorman was a person who had a ranch and a farm outside of Caldwell and he developed his property into town lots. This is William Ridenbaugh’s home; it was off of Boise Ave. He was certainly the largest investor over the Ridenbaugh project. He used the canal to power a flour mill that was off over in that area. This is Ivy Wild subdivision; this is at the end of Broadway and Federal Way. Broadway Ave is the roadway in the center of the picture. The 1902 creation of the U.S. Reclamation Service which was the predecessor of the Bureau of Reclamation, delivered the capital investment which was necessary of further development of the irrigation project. The Boise valley was chosen as one of two possible locations for irrigation project sites in Idaho. The projects included the construction of Diversion Dam on the Boise River, the expansion of New York Canal, and construction of Deer Flat Reservoir. All of these efforts led to further settlement of outlying areas. I hope that you all can read what it says at the bottom of these pictures. This is a homesteader who is hoping that the government is delivering water to his “prove-up” property. If you can’t read it, it says, “We are still waiting for the US to furnish water for these trees and ranch.” Another community that really grew because the Bureau of Reclamation’s Formation was Kuna. FHT filed a 200 acre claim in 1904 under the desert land act in anticipation of the coming water. His brother-in-law David R. Hubbard, filed on land adjacent to the property. I really love to look at these early images of Kuna because that area has changed so much in the last five years. Hubbard served on the Board of Directors at the Boise Valley Irrigation Association. He also contracted to build several reservoirs in Southern Ada County. They included Painter Lake, which is now known as Lake Hazel, Hubbard Lake, Kuna Lake, Watkins Lake, Rossin Lake, and Catherine Lake. All but Rossin Lake were completed but the project was dropped in favor of the larger scale, Boise Project. All of those lakes are gone except the Hubbard Reservoir. I had to do a talk a few months ago and I was talking about looking at the history of there neighborhood and how important that it. One of the kids in the class said, “Will I look in Lake Hazel and there is nothing there at all.” I said, “Do you know where Lake Hazel got its

9 name?” So, I explained where Lake Hazel got its name because I said I always wondered because there is not water anywhere I just couldn’t figure it out why in the world they named it Lake Hazel. Hubbard and Tiege were instrumental in the settlement of Kuna. Hubbard even advertised in Midwest papers to bring homesteaders to the area. Kuna’s town site was opened and other small railroad stops in the area developed. This is an ad that he would put in Midwest papers and it almost looks like Kuna is the center of the world. That is Kuna in 1920 and so in a mere 15 years it really grew quite a bit. Other communities that were opened because of the railroad coming to the area included Mora, Pleasant Valley, and Orchard. Orchard is a really interesting place to go in Ada County where things really haven’t changed a lot. Orchard was actually intended to be the site of fruit bearing trees. There was a large scheme to bring water to this area and there were many investors that actual bought property in orchard but the water never came. Orchard is basically a pretty deserted place. This was the Orchard school house. Pleasant Valley was another community in Southern Ada County. This is a bridge that goes over Indian Creek and it is one of the most fabulous bridges that I have ever scene. It almost looks like a bridge to nowhere now though. About this time the Interurban system which was originally established in 1890s to serve Boise and its urban neighborhoods which was extended. Walter E. Pierce developed a line outside of Boise that went all the way along Valley Rd., which we now call State St. and Hwy 44 through the towns of Eagle, Star and Middleton. By 1907 several of the street carlines had merged under the Boise Valley traction company. The company finished a loop that connected Boise not only to Eagle, Star, and Middleton, but by 1911 the line extended to Caldwell, Nampa, and Meridian. There are several farmers that put together inner urban stations on there properties because it was a way for them to freight there goods to market. Middleton’s Depot actually served the railroad, and the Interurban. It was kind of interesting because you can certainly get to some of these communities a little bit easier then, than you can today. It was reported that when Nampa was put on the loop that Nampa would be within 15 minutes of Boise. The line was going to offer express service in the valley for fruit growers, dairymen, and farmer’s continuous along the line. Some of the other communities that were established along the Interurban include Ustick and McDermott. These were small communities and today we just think of them mainly as the names of roads. This is a great ad, it says, “Next to irrigation the greatest factor of industrial development of the Boise valley.” I think that is really true, by having that inner urban and irrigation certainly made some of these communities develop. Actually, Pierce even had this idea that he was going to have a line go down

10 to Bruneau. I think it was about 1912 or 1913 that there was a mining boom in that area and there was a lot of speculators who thought Bruneau was going to be the next big place. He had this idea to have the inner urban go down there, but nothing ever came of it. There was also an excursion line that went out to Lake Lowell. At the same time the inner urban was building throughout the area, the Oregon short line began to build very substantial depots in a number of communities. This is the Caldwell Depot, which was constructed in 1906; it was described as a thing of beauty that will be a joy forever. Fortunately Caldwell still has its depot. This was a depot in Boise which was on Front and 11th St. The other thing that is kind of confusing but people could come to Boise by train; there was a sub line that went from Nampa to Boise. So you could still come to Boise by train, it just wasn’t the main line. There were other communities that grim response to the inner urban. Thomas Aikan who was an early Eagle settler built an Eagle hotel to house visitors coming to the area. This is of course the Eagle Mercantile which is now Orville Jackson. I went back to Eagle a couple of weeks ago to get a shot of the Eagle Hotel, but there was so much traffic I couldn’t get a very good picture. Meridian was another community that was agricultural based. In 1897 the first creamery was built. Another local industry were fruit drying plants. This one was near the Badey railroad station and it dried prunes. The prune industry was very sizable in Ada County and in fact Ada County lead the nation in the production of prunes. The future was pretty bright for Ada and Canyon counties at the turn of the 20th century. Arrowrock Dam, which would be the valley’s major water source site located on the south fork of the Boise river was constructed. It was completed by 1916. This is just a view of the construction of the dam. This is the Boise Commercial Club celebrating the completion of the dam. At the time it was completed it was the highest dam in the world. World War I increased markets for Idaho’s agricultural products. There was a high demand for meat, wool, and grain. But, following WWI the artificial market disappeared and prices fell dramatically. So, the economy sloped considerably in Idaho, especially in Ada and Canyon counties. At the same time the transportation networks also began to change. The Interurban which had been used to connect communities in Ada and Canyon counties was declining. Automobiles and trucks were being used more often to move people and freight. By 1928 the inner urban era ended in the valley. The Boise and Western Railroad Company took over the traction lines and farmers and communities like Meridian and Star still continued to use the tracks to haul farm products until the late 1930s. This is actually a meridian farm on the road to meridian.

11 Boise had something to celebrate though, that eventually lead to the development of the Bench area. After years of being served by a branch or sub-line of Nampa, the Union Pacific Railroad finally constructed a main line to Boise. The railroad line was diverted at Orchard east of Boise and the passenger trains came directly to the city. At the same time that the depot was built in Boise they also built a depot in Nampa. This is one of my favorite shots of the Boise Depot; this was the big celebration day on April 16, 1925. These are the Apple Blossom Girls and they were students from Boise High School. The young woman who is dressed like a conductor was Rose Regan, and she led all of the activities as trains came from the east and west to meet up at the depot. I think what we don’t realize is the depot was up there but it was really hard to get there. Capitol Blvd. wasn’t going to be constructed until 1936 and so one of the reasons that city fathers were really upset about the location of the depot was because all of the hotels and restaurants were in the main part of town and they didn’t have those services up there. I don’t think that we realize how drastically Boise has changed. I think this photo was taken basically at the location of Elmer’s. So the road that is kind of curving around the right and up to the depot would be Crescent Rim and this is after Capital Blvd. was completed. The 20s to the 30s were a very difficult time for farmers in the Boise Valley. Drought and grasshopper plates made it difficult for many farmers. There were some new deal programs which would help to revive farming in Ada County and would also bring some new people into the area. This is a farm that was in the Boise valley, this picture was taken about 1936. Federal release programs provided farmers with labor and physical improvement. Workers from the CCC lined irrigation ditches with concrete, they reinforced canal walls with riprap and they did other work along the canal. They also built or improved roads within the area. They did a lot of paving of roads and other things throughout the area. It was going to take WWII to bring in an economic boom to the agricultural communities and into Boise, at that time after WWII, especially based on increase in population. In Boise, Gowen Field was built which lead to the development of the bench area. Orchard road was paved to connect Gowen Field to Boise. Officer housing was built on the bench and it eventually lead to suburban development. This doesn’t look like a very impressive place, but this actually was the officer’s housing, that was built by J.O. Jordan Company. This is up on Pershing and Custer Ave, and those houses are still there. Post WWII development represents the transition where people had access to automobiles and could live a greater distance from the downtown area. The automobile also lead to the construction of parking lots and shopping centers which were built to better serve the driving public. Vista Village,

12 which is undergoing a phase change right now, was built in the 1950s. Karcher Mall was constructed in 1966 in Nampa. Those are both examples of late 20th Century development. The purpose of the presentation was to provide you all with a brief background and an understanding of how the area has developed, especially what the impact of irrigation has been on this area. I came back to Boise in 1988 and in 1989 I was hired to do a survey of the farms in Ada County. Then 10 years later that survey was updated. In that brief amount of time, the numbers of farms that have turned into new subdivisions was just amazing to me. It seems like such a short time has passed since you have had the farms and then the development. This is one of the signs we saw when we were out driving around, Change is inevitable except for those vending machines. I think this was actually on Fairview Ave., and there was so much traffic there and there were so many new subdivisions going up that I think it was a little bit overwhelming for some people. I hope that you take away from this is just a reminder of where we came from, a little bit of consideration of the historic sites that are throughout the area and the community. I don’t know if there are any transportation engineers out there anywhere but hopefully an appreciation for irrigation canals. I can now answer any questions that people have.

Question: Answer: You know I am not sure when exactly ACHD got started. 1970

Question: Answer: I think that ACHD and the Department of Transportation are certainly trying to work together to come up with better ideas of how to move people and cars and those type of things. Personally, I am not really sure how they work with some of these agencies and developing the road way systems and the actions that they do.

Question: Answer: He did. He built the Empire building and several of the other large structures that are in downtown center. He had his finger in so many different ties it was amazing. He was quite the entrepreneur and developer. He never was governor of his state, but his partner John Haines was and he was Mayor of the city and Cox was also mayor of the city at one time. I think to me and when I think about things I do believe that a lot of things developers are doing here today in making the amenities

13 and using trees and water to attract people. It is something that is very typical and something that has been around for quite a long time. I often wonder what he would think about how Boise has grown. He was so interested in bringing people here that I really wonder if he were around what his take on this growth would be now.

Question: Answer: There are little pieces here and there. I don’t know if you remember, it has got to be about six years ago when they were re-paving Main Street and they came across some of the tracks that were underground. The same thing that are in Caldwell and Nampa and those areas most of the tracks were covered up. If they weren’t covered up in recent years by road construction then they have been removed. One of the reasons that the inner urban, it actually lasted a long time if you think about it 1891-1928. That is 40 some years. But, it was the loss of passengers and the fact that there really wasn’t the money in it. I get really intrigued by the idea of trying to bring back that type of transit system, but my personal opinion is that we are so addicted to the convenience of a car that it would have to be really made convenient to make people use it. If you think about it, it went all the way to Middleton and Star and you could do this great loop, it would be wonderful to have today.

Question: Answer: I think that the communities that stayed where they were closer to a larger town. For instance, Dunkin was a stop outside of State St., but it is no longer there. Ustick survived because it was built specially to provide dairy products to Caldwell and Nampa. I think that Ustick survived because it was more dependent on products that were around for awhile to come. Yost was mainly a one man stop to provide his products to other place. But you go down the line and you think about all those places that no longer exist that were stops. In my head you can kind of ring them out as you go along and you think about Valentine and Dunkin and Soldiers Home. Willy Collister, Collister was another community that was developed by a local doctor and at one time there was a mercantile there, as well as the inner urban stop. I think that when some of the agricultural commodities died and those types of things happened it was hard to make a living farming and people had to do something else and that is what lead to the demise of some of those smaller communities. I don’t know if anybody is in the Collister/State area but that bar on the corner, I don’t remember what it is called now; it was the original Collister Mercantile store.

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Question: Answer: I would agree with you that they may have been assimilated as the area has grown. Some of the communities have been sucked up into, Meridian for instance; five mile and locust grove are considered part of the Meridian area. So growth has sucked them up.

Question: Answer: Actually Ridenbaugh, were actually behind the first aspect of bringing lumber into the area. One of the reasons that Rossi wanted to create new irrigation ditch, especially the Ridenbaugh canal was to bring the lumber down from the mountains to construction here. Eventually there was a community over in southeast Boise called Barber, which became the Boise/Payette Lumber Company and then translated into Boise Cascade. It was a company town and a company community. It existed from 1905 to the late 30s; because the area was growing they moved the plant to Emmett. So the lumber industry doesn’t really have an impact here.

Question: Answer: Yes it did. One of the reasons that it went to the natatorium is the east end was being developed. One of the things developers did was to build the natatorium there and it was a pretty magnificent structure. It was actually a destination spot for tourists. So they would attract not only people that wanted to live in Boise, but they got visitors region wide who would come to Boise to the natatorium. So the first line actually did run along Warm Springs and then it expanded out from there to different parts of Boise. White City Park was there and there was also another park Pierce built a park out by now what is called Plantation Golf Course. The natatorium itself blew down in a wind storm. As communities developed a little bit differently, Plantation Golf Course is the site of Pierce’s Park, so it was made into a private golf course. People tastes in amusements changed. As we went into the 1940s and 1950s, it seemed like the roller skating rink seemed more popular and there were other activities that people did and the amusement park fell by the wayside.

Question: Answer: Well that is a good question. You know I have a friend that works as a hydrologist and I am not the expert here by any means. I thought that a lot of the new communities with these big green

15 lawns would be sucking up more water but he recently said that actually the larger percent of water is still be used for agricultural purposes. The amount of water that is going to these new subdivisions and new developments is smaller. I wish I had a great answer for you but I honestly have to say that I don’t know as much about that subject.

Question: Answer: In my opinion, I think the canal system is what we have now and I think that is what we are going to have. I don’t really see people extending the canal system at this point.

Question: Answer: I had meant to say that the Historical Society Library archives, actually the majority of my historic images are used by the permission of the Historical Society Library and Archives. I have to talk to them and say good things because they are just getting ready to move into a new building over by the old penitentiary in September. I don’t know if you do a lot of historic research but they really have one of the best selections of historic photographs that I have ever used. It is easily accessible as well.

Well I thank you all for coming. I hope that this sets the stage for the next talk that will be coming up in the next couple of months and I said if you have any questions I will be up here for a few more minutes if you want to talk to me for more.

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