Published by Idaho Statesman
Article by Anna Webb
Edition Date: 06/26/07

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to miss out on any fun to be had from repeating it.

Preservation Idaho's annual ArchWalks, strolls led by history experts through Boise neighborhoods, are one of the summer's best ways to experience local history up close.

The new season begins July 7 with a tour of the Central Addition neighborhood in downtown Boise. ArchWalks continue through October with tours of Fort Boise, Morris Hill Cemetery and South Boise (Note: the June-September sessions for these walks already have sold out).

Here's a primer to get you ready for the four walks.

Central Addition

The Central Addition neighborhood, bordered by Broad, 2nd and Myrtle streets and the alley between 5th and 6th streets in downtown Boise, sits in a limbo zone between the Ada County Courthouse, Winco and Julia Davis Park.

Dotted with a few businesses and homes, it also has its share of empty lots, rental properties and boarded-up buildings. Just before the turn of the last century, it was one of Boise's most prosperous neighborhoods.

By 1903, following the arrival of the railroad on nearby Front Street, the area had become more commercial and a less fashionable place to live.

"The neighborhood's vulnerability spurs my interest," said Preservation Idaho's Dan Everhart, who will lead the tour. "Its sudden demise, or at least its decline, is fascinating."

The neighborhood has lost many of its original structures, including a house on the southeast corner of 5th and Broad streets, as recently as April. The home next door, a two-story Queen Anne style house, was demolished just days later.

None of the Central Addition's buildings is on the National Register of Historic Places. Several are worthy of that listing, Everhart says, including the row of working-class houses (built circa 1908) on Broad Street between 4th and 5th streets and the mansard-roofed mansion at 416 S. 4th St.

This house, a good example of the Second Empire style popular in America in the 1860s but rare in Idaho, was the home of Idaho's Secretary of State Charles J. Bassett — and his son, Charles Jr., assistant secretary of state — around 1901.

Unfortunately, even a historical designation can't save a building if it's in private hands, Everhart said.

One neighborhood architectural gem is the white and pink Fowler house at 413 S. 5th St, built circa 1895. The Fowlers owned a jewelry store in Downtown Boise and lived in the house until 1920.

A neighborhood's decline does have one bright side, Everhart said. Neglected buildings generally escape bad remodels. Except for a back addition, the house is historically intact, inside and outside, with the exception of a missing porch railing.

The house is now vacant, owned by real estate development firm Oaas Laney, LLC. Project manager Brian Holleran said the firm has no plans for the property, but anticipates a time when the historical house could be moved to a new location.

The neighborhood feels like it's in the center of town now, but it wasn't part of the original Boise township, which was bordered on the north by Fort Street and on the south by Front Street.

Central Addition was a green and rural place surrounded by the Davis family orchards. Several of those acres became Julia Davis Park, which celebrated its centennial on Saturday.

By 1903, Union Pacific Railroad had built its "downtown spur" running east/west on Front Street. The railroad brought noise, commerce and warehouses to the Central Addition and marked the beginning of the end of the neighborhood's gracious living.

Around the same time, Warm Springs Avenue, offering quiet and natural hot water, became the new address of choice.

Fort Boise

Ken Swanson with the Idaho Historical Society leads the Fort Boise tour on Tuesday, July 31. His tour will cover the grounds of the old Fort, including the site of the original road from Boise to the gold mines of Idaho City.

The road ran through the Fort, behind the present Veterans Administration, through Rocky Canyon and up through the hills. Placement of the road was politically key, Swanson said. The Fort opened in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War. A number of miners in Idaho happened to be Confederate soldiers who had deserted and fled west.

While they weren't willing to die for the South, their sympathies were still with their home territory, Swanson said. Union soldiers policed the road to the mines to make sure no Idaho gold ended up going to the Confederacy.

Fort Boise opened on July 4, 1863, to protect Oregon Trail emigrés and mining camps in the Boise Basin. Three days later, the City of Boise was founded nearby. Without Fort Boise, originally called the "Boise Barracks," there would be no City of Boise, Swanson said.

Some of the oldest buildings in Idaho are at Fort Boise, notably Building No. One, a stone cottage on Officer's Row built in 1863, and Building No. Six, a long, stone building across from the State Veterans Home. Built in 1864, it held food, supplies and equipment.

The Spanish American War in 1898 was Fort Boise's first major medical event. American soldiers contracted tropical diseases while fighting in Spanish colonies. Army doctors sent many to Fort Boise, believing Idaho's dry desert air would speed their recovery.

Fort Boise's cemetery, originally behind Mountain Cove High School, was Boise's first cemetery — military and civilian. By 1910, the military had moved graves and gravestones to the cemetery's current location up Mountain Cove Road. The original site sometimes flooded, an unfortunate situation in which coffins would rise to the surface and float away, Swanson said.

Morris Hill Cemetery

Boise architect Donna Hartmans' office sits across from Morris Hill Cemetery. She can ponder the site, one of Boise's greenest and most historical, every day. Hartmans will lead the Morris Hill tour on Thursday, Aug. 23.

Her research began with learning the difference between a "cemetery" and a "grave yard." The latter is specifically related to a church. The former is independent of church affiliation. The term "cemetery" comes from the Greek term for "resting" or "sleeping place," Hartmans said. Her talk will include the cemetery's ethnic sections and preservation issues such as vandalism and weather damage.

Morris Hill Cemetery opened in 1882 on 80 acres bought for $2,000. Seventy of those acres remain in use by the cemetery. Ten acres are now part of Ahavath Beth Israel Synagogue.

Morris Hill is almost filled to capacity, said Hartmans, who started wondering how the site will pay for upkeep once it has no more plots left to sell. She found out that 60 percent of the cemetery's funding comes from the city. When someone buys a plot, a percentage of the money is designated for "perpetual care."

Hartmans also will touch on grave stone iconography, which is a visual language of its own. See a carved lamb on a headstone, it's probably a child's marker. Grapes and vines carved in stone mean the "eucharist and holy communion." A pansy means "remembrance."

South Boise

Historian Barbara Perry Bauer considers South Boise a part of town rife with history. The Oregon Trail crosses through it (you can see markers on Boise Avenue).

The Bown House on the grounds of Riverside Elementary at the southeast end of ParkCenter Boulevard is one of Boise's oldest houses, dating from 1879.

South Boise was the city's "dairy zone," with Triangle Dairies and others. Despite all of this, said Bauer, who's writing a book about the area, the neighborhood has often been overlooked.

In her tour on Tuesday, Oct. 2, she'll try to remedy that.

She acknowledges the neighborhood is large, especially if one includes parts of South Broadway. The tour will focus on the old South Boise townsite, roughly bordered by Broadway and Boise avenues, and Protest Hill.

Construction of the Broadway Bridge in 1892 stimulated South Boise growth and opened the area to development. South Boise was incorporated in 1902, and the City of Boise annexed it in 1913.

South Boise's International Order of Oddfellows Rosedale Lodge No. 102 still stands on Broadway, just north of Boise Avenue. The Rosedale building once hosted community dances and had a lending library upstairs.

Eagle Point Apartments at Boise Avenue and Protest Street occupy the former grounds of an old mill. The mill pond made for a good ice-skating rink in the winter, and loaned its name to one of the neighborhood's most impressive houses. "The Mills" was a mansion owned by the Ridenbaugh family. Although it's outside the scope of this particular ArchWalk, which will focus more on sites closer to Broadway such as the old fire house at Broadway and Boise avenues, it makes for a compelling story.

The house had a sweeping, outdoor stone staircase and a turret. It stood somewhere west of Protest Hill, near where Boise Avenue curves toward Downtown. Bauer has been unable to pinpoint its exact location.

Businessman James McDonald, one of the early supporters of the Boise Art Museum, bought the house from the Ridenbaughs and tore it down in 1926 — only 30 years after it was built. He intended to build a much grander house on the site, but ended up "dying of carbon monoxide poisoning" according to the papers — a euphemism for suicide, Bauer said.

Anna Webb: 377-6431