From a distance, Boise looks like a dreamy desert oasis rising above the seemingly endless sagebrush flats of the Boise Basin. The welcoming patch of green attracted Captain B.L.E. Bonneville and his party of French trappers as they trudged across the barren Snake River Plain in 1833, causing them to exclaim, "Les bois! Les bois!" ("Trees!"). The French name stuck, though it is now pronounced boy-see.
Today the city still looks more like a tuft of dense forest than a bustling metropolitan center. The largest of Idaho's cities, Boise still numbers only a modest 125,000 souls. Although it's the state capital, Boise is an easygoing city where few high-rises manage to tower above the dense canopy. The shimmering blue Boise River rushes through the heart of downtown and gives the city an unspoiled and almost wild feel. Boise nestles at the eastern edge of a broad valley beneath 8,000-ft peaks. Across the valley, roughly 30 mi from downtown, rise still more mountains at the Oregon state line.
A year after Bonneville's group discovered the riverside oasis, the Hudson Bay Company, a British fur-trading enterprise, constructed a fort near the mouth of the Boise River. By the 1840s, pioneers were steering Conestogas along the Oregon Trail across southern Idaho and through what is now downtown Boise. The longest of the pioneer roads, the 2,020-mi Oregon Trail, joined the state of Missouri with Oregon. The trail's deep ruts can still be seen in spots along its route through Idaho.
Gold-rush trails leading to the Boise Basin and Owyhee mines also brought settlement to the Boise area. But it was not until 1863 that Boise actually became a town. With an endless stream of pioneers passing through the Oregon Trail and swarms of miners, the U.S. military decided to build a fort to protect the new settlers in the region. Construction on Fort Boise was begun, and within a year, when the regional legislature held its second session in Lewiston, Montana, Boise was incorporated and named the capital of the Idaho Territory. Although gold fever gripped Boise and the town had grown to 1,658 by 1864, five years later it had shrunk back to just under 1,000. It resumed its growth in the 1870s, and by 1887, three years before Idaho became a state, it had a functioning streetcar system.
Like that of most Western frontier towns, Boise's growth was spurred by a succession of transportation links, including the railroad. A branch of the Oregon Short Line reached Boise in 1887. While the Boise Basin was becoming a booming rail center, irrigation was turning stretches of the once barren valley into lush farmland. By 1910, after construction of a dam and a canal, Ada County had 1,500 irrigated farms. When the Arrowrock Dam on the Middle Fork of the Boise River was completed in 1930, it was the tallest dam in the world. Today, it is included in a major recreation area south of Boise surrounding Lucky Peak and Arrowrock reservoirs.
Beginning in the late 1800s, another wave of immigrants hit Boise, this time Basques from the western Pyrenees. Basques are primarily sheepherders, and in southwestern Idaho they found a terrain and climate similar to those of their homeland. Their immigration peaked in the 1930s, but still today the Snake River Plain has the largest concentration of Basques in the United States, many of them carrying on the sheepherding traditions of their forefathers. Colorful Basque traditions are displayed at a cultural center in Boise and in annual Basque festivals held in several towns in south-central and southwestern Idaho.
Boise's governmental center is anchored by the stunning State Capitol, which was modeled after the U.S. Capitol and built of native sandstone between 1905 and 1912. A soaring 208-ft dome and polished marble columns inside grace the structure. For all the presence of state government and the high-tech giants Micron Electronics, Micron Technology, and Hewlett-Packard, Boise is still a major agricultural center, and as such is the home of the supermarket giant Albertson's and J.R. Simplot Co., one of the world's foremost processors of food, most notably potatoes. With a robust economy based on such diverse industries, Boise has the polish of a modern city but still manages to be a modest and unassuming town with an easygoing manner.
With the Boise River surging through the center of town and thousands of acres of national forest, lakes, and rugged mountain wilderness within an hour's drive, Boise is known for its outdoor sports and recreation opportunities. Just outside the city limits there are dozens of state and federal recreation properties and nature preserves, ranging from Bruneau Dunes State Park to the vast Boise National Forest. Roughly 40 mi southwest, the Snake River and its tributaries offer all manner of water sports.
With all of this going for it, it is no wonder that Boise is one of the Northwest's upstart cities. The media have not failed to recognize its virtues. Money magazine touted the City of Trees as "the fourth-best place to live in America." USA Today ranked Boise among the six "cities of the '90s." Yet there are those who think enough is enough. Reporter Marianne Flagg of the Idaho Statesman appealed to her media colleagues in 1992 to "please stop writing about us," complaining that "it's tough to be the object of so much swooning, so much rosy wooing."
