Chapter 1 Taking Shape
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CHAPTER 1 TAKING SHAPE A Region Takes Shape Native people lived along the Snake and Southwest Idaho offers a mix of landscape, Boise rivers, and early emigrants crossed the natural resources, culture, and economy. The region on the Oregon Trail. Julius Morrow, an region’s broad swath of six counties, located in a Oregon Trail pioneer who passed through the area semi-arid area known as the Great Basin, includes in the autumn of 1864 commented on the a vast and remote desert of sagebrush and lava landscape when he wrote: rock, mountain peaks that reach almost 10,000 feet, and crystalline rivers that provide water for When we first came in sight of Boise City and the valley, we were upon a hill seven sustenance and recreation. For much of its human miles distant, considerable timber exists history, the region has been lightly populated— along the banks of the river. There were ranches and fields of grain, some in shock relative to other areas in the country. 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 barren and desolate. 12 Some pioneers stayed in the area, rather than traveling further westward. Boise, the capital city, was founded in 1863 as an army post. In the fall of 1863 the town had 725 people; a year later the number reached 1,658. In 1864, Boise became the territorial capital. At the same time, the discovery of gold in the Boise Basin in Boise County brought almost 19,000 miners to Southwest Idaho. By 1864 Idaho City was the largest community in the territory, home to 20,000 miners and more than 250 businesses. In 1890, when Idaho became a state, Boise’s population had reached 2,300. Ten years later almost 6,000 Map of Idaho, 1895 12 As read by Barbara Perry-Bauer in her presentation for COMPASS , “Historic Land Use in the Treasure Valley: A Changing Landscape,” May 25, 2005. 17 people lived in the area. county was created from a portion of Ada County by act of the legislature on March 7, 1891. 14 Canyon County Between 1840 and 1862, more than 250,000 The Hudson’s Bay Company established Fort emigrants traveled through Elmore County on the Boise in 1834 near what is now the City of Parma, Oregon Trail. Settlers came to the region for gold but abandoned it in 1855. Immigrants traveled and other precious metals. A census in 1870 through Canyon County on the Oregon Trail.13 showed that the majority of miners were Chinese. During the Boise Basin and Owyhee gold rushes By 1888, the county was better known for its of 1862 and 1863, Canyon County provided cattle, horse, and sheep industry. Young Basque highways to and from the mines. Its earliest men from the Pyrenees Mountains, between permanent communities, founded along the Snake France and Spain, provided the labor for the and Boise Rivers in the 1860's, were farming sheep industry. Thus, many nations form the centers developed to feed the mining population. historical culture for the county.15 Arrival of the Oregon Short Line Railroad in 1883 stimulated the growth of the cities of Nampa, Gem County Caldwell, Parma, and Melba and soon became the Gem County was known in the early 1900s territory’s most densely populated area. The for its fertile land. Fruit packers coined the name “Gem of Plenty” for the area. Road houses were necessary to give weary travelers a place to stop for a drink, meal, or lodging. Falk’s Store was one such stop located about ten miles from Emmett near the present Gem county line. The store was the only stop between Boise and Baker, Oregon and was reported to earn an estimated $60,000 a year.16 Caldwell Depot 14 Canyon County Government, 2010 Canyon County Comprehensive Plan. http://www.canyonco.org/dsd/CompPlan.htm 15 Elmore County Government Pages, http://elmorecounty.org/, December 5, 2005. 13 Idaho.gov, Canyon County, 16 Gem County Official Website, http://www.idaho.gov/aboutidaho/county/canyon.html, http://www.co.gem.id.us/general/history.htm, December 5, April 4, 2006. 2005. 18 in 1900, the state had only two communities with more than 2,500 residents, and, almost 100 years “…consider the state of Idaho. Its later, in 1990, only three cities in the state had boundaries in 1900 enclosed a portion of the earth about equal in 30,000 people or more (Boise, Pocatello, and size to England, Scotland, and Idaho Falls). Even in the late twentieth-century, Wales combined, but contained “Idaho managed to keep one foot firmly planted only 161,000 residents… how so in the country while sliding the other ever so few people could raise enough money to construct and maintain tentatively toward the city.” 19 even a modest system of roads and Throughout the twentieth-century, economic highways offers testimony to instability of the state’s natural resource-based ingenuity and perseverance. A further nightmare for aspiring industries caused the population to rise and fall. highway builders was that the Southwest Idaho was more resilient to these sizeable portions of Idaho were population swings, particularly later in the century, mountainous and unpopulated. They still are.” when an economy based on natural resources – Carlos Schwantes, Going Places lumber, mining, and agriculture (wood chips, mineral chips, potato chips!) – now included industries based on a new kind of chip…the Payette County electronic kind. Hewlett-Packard built a plant west Payette County was settled as a railroad camp of Boise in the 1970s and Micron started business in the 1860s and called “Boomerang” for the log on the southeastern fringe of the city a decade boom on the Payette River. The county was later later. Many other high technology firms have named after Francois Payette, a Canadian fur emerged throughout the area -- from Boise to trapper and explorer with the North West Nampa – and employ thousands of people. Company who arrived in 1818.17 Families from Boston, Massachusetts and cities in the Midwest Transportation and Development Patterns established New Plymouth in 1895; it became an The region’s terrain, hydrology and climate incorporated city in 1948.18 have played a prominent part in the pattern of Like today, the majority of the state’s development. The “Treasure Valley,” a marketing population throughout the nineteenth and term applied to an area with no specific boundary, twentieth centuries lived in Southwest Idaho. Yet, is roughly defined by the mountains to the north, mountains and desert to the south, the eastern 17 About Idaho website, http://www.state.id.us/aboutidaho/county/payette.html edge of Ada County to the east, and the western February 22, 2006. 18 Comprehensive Plan Draft. Payette County, Idaho, March 19 Carlos A. Schwantes, In Mountain Shadows: A History of Idaho, 2005, page 10. page 122. 19 edge of Canyon County to the west with a deep a spur-line, I-184, to downtown Boise. This gorge cut by the Snake River and the Bonneville alignment was fortunate for the Boise River itself. Flood 20,000 years ago. Within these difficult Rivers in other metropolitan areas were prime environments lie more hospitable areas watered by alignments for the new interstate highways, the Payette and Boise Rivers. Early settlement depriving the community of a wonderful natural occurred in the original Fort Boise site near amenity. Parma, but the fort relocated to what was to As population growth took off around 1990, become the City of Boise. This new site was closer developable land, water, and transportation to the booming gold mines around Idaho City. facilities (section line roads intended for farm The City of Boise was nestled against the access) supported the westward development foothills, convenient to the Boise River and with patterns that continue to this day. The difficult ready access to the timber in the mountains. When terrain and lack of water in the Foothills have the railroad was built in the late nineteenth- limited growth to the north, with mostly higher- century, however, the Union Pacific rail company end housing being built there. To the south and was unwilling to cover the expense of bringing the east of Boise City, roads, surface water and good line down into the Boise River valley. Instead it soils are scarce. followed easier terrain through Kuna and created So while the City of Boise is the largest city in a rail center in Nampa. The rail presence and the region, and thereby considered the “central” construction of irrigation canals led to a booming city, the pattern of growth has actually moved the agricultural economy in Canyon County. population center farther west. By 2005, that Boise itself lacked direct passenger rail service center had reached Meridian. until 1926, with the construction of the Boise Cut- Demographics off. 20 The next major transportation investment The juxtaposition between urban and rural came in the 1950s and 1960s with the lifestyles – a theme throughout the history of construction of Interstate -84 (I-84). The original Southwest Idaho – continued, and pressure on literature promoting an interstate called this land use prevailed. The six-county area population section I-80 North and was coined the “Boise grew by nearly 40,000 people between 1980 and Bypass.” The region’s terrain again became an 1990, for a total of just under 350,000. This small issue in determining the path of I-84, which growth spurt foreshadowed what was to come in veered south of the City of Boise, connecting with the 1990s.