Boise

Book excerpt: Boise was founded on the Oregon Trail in 1863, shortly after the opening of Fort Boise, which was built to protect the gold that had recently been discovered in the Boise Basin around Idaho City. By the late 1800s, Boise had a very large downtown infrastructure, and it saw the addition of many multistoried buildings after 1900. In the late 1960s though the 1970s, Boise experienced a major urban renewal project with many of the historic buildings being torn down to make way for a new downtown mall. Since the 1970s, many new buildings have filled in the lots created by the urban renewal. This book will give readers an idea of what Boise once looked like.