Let's Do This! A Field Guide of History Activities.

We’ve adapted a list of activities from the National Trust of Historic Preservation that can either be done in the classroom, for extra credit, or as a fun family activity. These projects will teach your students and children valuable lessons while also contributing important and valuable information to their communities and future generations. No one is ever too young to be a historian and we hope the children in your life are inspired by the incredible difference they can make by engaging in the stories of those who came before!

  1. Explore your family history.

    Investigate places that are significant to your family. For example, where did your parents or grandparents go to school, grow up, or get married? Look at old photographs, and, if you live in the same area, visit these places if they’re still around. Talk about how they compare to the photographs and what has changed. Think about the future of these places in the community today.

  2. Talk to neighbors who have lived on your street for a long time.

    Find out what they remember about living there and about the people who have moved on. Maybe they have old photographs of how the street and houses used to look. Consider recording the conversation. Oral histories are an invaluable resource and provide a tangible link to the places of our past. Plus, this is good interview practice. 

  3. Take a walk down “Main Street.”

    If you don’t have a street named Main Street, just choose the busiest “main” street! Authentic and traditional commercial districts are centered around a street that is full of historic buildings and usually feature locally owned stores. Why buy local? Is there old architecture mixed with new architecture?

    If you are interested in a guided tour, then join Preservation Idaho on Saturday for our WalkAbout Boise Tour which runs from Spring-Fall! We also can coordinate a special WalkAbout Boise tour for teachers who would like to bring their classroom for a field trip.

  4. Visit a historic site.

    Take kids to visit a historic site in your area or stop by the local historical society or museum. Is there a National Trust Historic Site or Partner Place nearby? Talk about what stories are told at these places. You can often find an original map of the surrounding area at the historical society or museum. Make a project out of comparing old maps to today’s roads and neighborhoods. What has changed? What has stayed the same?

  5. Assign a group history report.

    Ask different groups of students to research various aspects of their city -- architectural styles, changes in neighborhoods, stories of well-known families and political leaders, construction of important historic buildings like City Hall, and more. What is it about each of these elements that makes your city unique?

  6. Participate in a community project.

    Ask your historical society or local preservation organization if there are any projects that your kids can get involved in. Help clean up and repair neglected buildings, plant trees in or around historic areas, or clean headstones in a local historic cemetery.

  7. Write letters to local public officials or congressmen.

    Let them know what historic resources are important to your city or town. Write to a member of Congress about a certain historic place and explain what make it special and worth preserving.

  8. Create a historical record for a landmark.

    Brainstorm the items that should be included in a historical record, like photographs, construction dates, architectural styles and features, and stories of who lived there or used the building for business or community purposes. What kinds of things would someone want to know about this place in 50 or 100 years? Then, put together your own historical record and share it with the community on the Idaho Architecture Project.

  9. Volunteer at a museum or historical society.

    You could have the opportunity to organize historical records, set up displays, or create exhibits by collecting photographs and artifacts and writing label descriptions. Look for opportunities to become a junior docent at a historic site or help with research, such as title searches at the county courthouse.

    Note: This may be better suited for an older age group.

  10. Create a historic walking tour of your city.

    Ask kids what places they think are historic in your city or town. Draw a map of where these places are and create a walking tour that you could take a visitor to your city on. This is a great way to get kids thinking about what buildings are historic, why they’re important, and how they all tell a story of the history of their city. In what ways do these places tell pieces of the same story? Do they tell different stories from different eras? Using the This Place Matters materials, share your passion with others by taking a photograph and posting to Preservation Idaho Instagram with hashtags #thisplacemattersidaho

  11. Art Project: Popsicle Stick Log Cabins

    Goal: Students will build their own settler’s cabins using popsicle sticks. Discussion on pioneer experience, building materials, while using geometric concepts (symmetry, geometric figures, parallel sides) to describe their structure. 

    Materials: popsicle sticks, glue

    Time Machine Buildings: Boise O’Farrell Cabin, Roseberry General Store, Boise Cascade Building

  12. Art Project: Geometry Through Architecture

    Goal: Students will dissect different buildings from the architectural primer using geometric concepts to describe architectural elements of a building (e.g. lines, angles, types of triangles in a Victorian house, circles and the dome on the Idaho State Capitol). Talk about message of the design of the particular building and reasons why particular buildings were build a certain way. 

    Materials: large pictures of various buildings, crayons, coloring pencils

Be a History Detective!

Uncovering the Story Behind Buildings in Idaho

By Jamee Fiore, Architectural Historian

Did you know that every building has a story (or stories) to tell? All we need to do is observe and listen. There are a lot of clues to discover that can tell us the year a building was built, who built it, why it was built, how it has changed with each new generation, what historical events the building is associated with, and more.

For example, did you know that if you find a square-headed nail in an old wooden barn or building, it means it was likely built sometime before the 1870s? Machine made, Round-headed nails didn’t exist until after the 1870s, so prior to that people either made their own or bought them from a local blacksmith.

You can learn how architectural historians investigate the mysteries of old buildings! Here are suggestions and resources you can use to become a History Detective. We hope that you will find a building in your own community that you will investigate to uncover its mysteries!

  1. County Assessor’s Records

    The County Assessor’s Records provide only basic information about various properties, including their characteristics (number of bedrooms, bathrooms), valuation, year built, and more. This information is useful to show how a building may have changed over time. You will need the address, parcel number, or subdivision name to search for the property.

    Note: not all Assessor’s records have been digitized nor are all property records available. Some records may be inaccurate and often need to be validated through additional research.

  2. Building Permits

    Visit your local City Planning and Development Services to find old Building Permits.

    Building permits ensure the enforcement of building codes. Sometimes they can be helpful to show how a building may have changed over time from its original design. 

    Boise Planning & Development Services

  3. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

    Sanborn Maps date from 1867-1970. They show the history, growth, and development of American cities, towns, and neighborhoods. These can be accessed in the Boise Public Library’s Idaho Room.

  4. Idaho State Archives: Architecture Index, Photo Collections, Polk (City) Directories

    • The architectural index is a reference index for buildings to show the “first notable person” to live at a particular address. 

    • There is a large collection of photos organized by city and street. Most of the collection may be accessed on the website but a portion of the collection is only available at the archives. 

    • The Polk (City) Directories provide the name, address, and profession of individuals throughout the city, similar to a phone book. 

  5. Newspapers

    Newspapers covered all kinds of topics from advertisements to travel announcements and even who built a new home including when, where, and for how much. Sometimes details about the type of house, how many rooms, and interesting features can be found. The Idaho state archives features both microfilm and online collections of state newspapers. 

  6. Library of Congress website 

    The Library of Congress has a very large collection of newspapers and books and is a great resource to access details of a building when it was originally built and any historic events leading up to or surrounding the building and community.

  7. General Land Office (GLO) Maps

    The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took charge of mapping certain lands in the US and created General Land Office maps (GLO). Some of these maps date back to 1810, and they contain survey plats and field notes. This can be especially helpful when researching more rural properties that might not have been covered by the Sanborn Maps. 

The Buildings of the Preservation Idaho Time Machine.

Learn more about the real life buildings from the Preservation Idaho Time Machine! Click the links below to read about the history of each building on the Idaho Architecture Project.

We encourage you to work with your students to add additional buildings found throughout the state of Idaho! Visit our Be a History Detective blog to learn more about resources for researching historic buildings. Teachers and students or parents and children can easily upload information on their family home, a favorite local building, and more!

The Mall Saga Act 2 - Historical Counterfactual

Preservation Idaho Intern Savannah Willits recently explored the controversy surrounding Boise’s failed downtown mall, and it’s role in the larger story of Boise’s urban renewal and identity. The following is the second of a two-part series of blogs resulting from Savannah’s research. Read the first part, The Impact of Buildings Unseen.

Historical Counterfactual

Since the age of urban renewal, mixed-use development principles have guided the urban planning decisions in Downtown Boise. However, the unseen building’s presence—the regional shopping mall never built—lingers over the city. 

The absent downtown mall has resulted in a downtown that is not now dependent on a dying retail model nor in desperate need of major revitalization. From the rise of abandoned mall photography to the dramatic decline of major retailers, the mall’s unfilled promise of prosperity has been well documented. For example, JCPenney, Macy’s, Forever 21, and Victoria’s Secret, all anchor stores at Boise’s Towne Square Mall, have filed for or are on the brink of bankruptcy. 

Similarly, Boise Dev and the New York Times has reported that Green Street Advisors, a firm that rates malls in the United States, forecasted that “half of all department stores” would close in the next five years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. This pandemic has only exacerbated the already weakened economic livelihood and exploited the archaic reach of major brick-and-mortar retailers due to the rise of the online retailers. 

In an alternative timeline in which the downtown mall is built, Boise’s retail situation would have most likely resembled Salt Lake’s City Creek or Spokane’s River Park Square. Both regional shopping centers have required redevelopment efforts in the form of economic revitalization funding and amenity additions and will continue to require rehabilitation to remain relevant. 

Similarly, if the regional shopping mall had been built downtown, it would have experienced a higher density of retailer casualties. As of right now, only three retailers (Walla Walla Clothing Co, Loft, and Maven) have announced they will not reopen, while at least five mall stores, many of them anchor institutions, are desperately grappling with bankruptcy on top of an already dying mall model.   

There are incredibly high odds that this “alternate universe Boise” would be facing immensely worse economic costs and a bleak future at this exact moment in time. Instead of celebrating a long list of national accolades, the center of downtown Boise would be in desperate need of radical revitalization. Therefore, the existing sustainability of Boise's mixed-use scene owes its dues, in a large degree, to the failed mall. 

Overall, the major lingering impact of the absent mall was that it successfully persuaded the Boise community and leadership to bypass a failed method of redevelopment and instead pursue a mixed-use development approach. It was a blessing in disguise. Rather than being passive or apathetic observers of Boise’s evolving identity, community members such as those who participated in the Preservation Coalition, citizen advisory committees, and the planning entities actively took part in creating a Boise that values economic sustainability, historic preservation, and progressive urban planning practices. Boise’s mixed-use redevelopment plan, cemented during the urban renewal phase, successfully avoided the adverse outcomes of the regional shopping malls that haunt many of America’s metropolitan areas today.

(Click on the right side of the photos above to see more.)

Photos:

  1. The historic Eastman Building. 7. The historic Union Block.

  2. The cornices on the historic Eastman Building. 8. View of Main St. in the 70s.

  3. The historic Eastman Building burning in 1987. 9-10. The historic Egyptian Theatre

  4. The historic Sonna Building. 11. The historic Mode Building as seen today.

  5. The historic Alexander’s Clothing Store. 12. The historic Hotel Boise (Hoff Building)

  6. View of the Sonna Building and Alexander’s Clothing Store.

Conclusion

The impact of the historic buildings that were once jeopardized by the mall proposal have continued to be architectural anchors downtown. These buildings not only provide architectural flavor and diversity in style but also embody Boise’s historical duration. Had these buildings been demolished to create room for a mall architecturally, Boise would appear more adolescent in age and sophistication, compared to other peer northwest cities. Similarly, Boise’s layout and image would have been dominated by architecture of the 1970s and beyond, as well as barren surface parking lots in order to serve the large regional shopping mall. Incidentally, by remaining seen, these buildings provide depth and maturity as established urban anchors. 

Moving forward, Boise’s ever-changing fears, desires, and values will continue to evolve and will likely become more divisive. As new buildings are envisioned, the skyline rises, and Boise grows in both age and size, conversations about embedding the community’s long-term values into present-day growth are vital. Such as in the case of the proposed downtown mall, these conversations and resulting outcomes will likely be the difference between a long-lasting mistake and future prosperity. 

Overall, the legacy of the buildings seen and unseen has a tangible impact on the economic, social, and spatial outcomes. Therefore, it is critical to understand the balance between the reimagined visions and the dust of demolition. Equally important is to understand the community’s legacy of protection, conservation, adaptation, and rebuilding. Boise’s self-proclaimed mission of livability depends on this delicate balance, especially as our community grows.

Our Thanks to the Idaho Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities

We would like to take a moment to recognize and thank the Idaho Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support of our important work in Historic Preservation through the CARES Act Grant.

These funds have been crucial to our organization during this year of navigating COVID-19. Our revenue has been significantly impacted this year, and the monies from this grant allow us to continue pursuing our mission and vision for protecting and preserving historic places in the state of Idaho.

We thank these two great organizations for their support and their continued work to ensure the success of all Idaho nonprofits for years to come.

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