Why is pioneerville so slow

In , the Northern Pacific Railroad platted three thousand acres to create Yakima, Washington, and likely commissioned the lithographic view created four years later in order to attract new residents and stimulate real estate sales. Artists created at least five aerial view maps of Boise during the late s of varying quality and detail.

While varying slightly on vantage point, detail, and quality, all of these maps have traits in common with each other as well as with other maps of this genre and time period.

All of them depict Boise from the north looking south. Viewing the city from the opposite direction might have excluded the river and revealed much less room for expansion due to the obstruction provided by the nearby foothills. By also featuring prominent business buildings, brilliantly designed modern homes, and an organized street system, artists illustrated a progressive urban area but with plenty of room for additional growth.

Boise certainly benefited from these maps as well as other promotional tools that often corresponded with them.

Local real estate developer W. Pierce utilized maps, photographs, and drawings in order to give a visual representation of the city written so eloquently of in his promotional publications. In the publication produced by W. Clearly, without the benefits of being a port city, environmental paradise, or major trade center, Boise survived and occasionally thrived in a time when other cities struggled.

Founded in a somewhat indistinct location, the city reinvented itself periodically in order to continue to expand and resisted the temptation to rely on past accomplishments. Astute businessmen, always searching for ways to profit from westward expansion, relentlessly pushed for new economic ventures, consequently allowing Boise to progress rather than stagnate.

Beginning as a mining town, Boise grew quickly as a trade and supply center. Later, irrigation brought workers and settlers to Boise and allowed previously barren earth to become valuable and fertile farmland. Unable to obtain a mainline connection to the railroad for a number of years, the city formed around branch links on the Boise Bench and downtown.

Both locations, along with the eventual mainline depot, changed the city landscape near the railroad stations as well as along the many tracks extending from them.

The trolley system, also an extensive rail system, transformed Boise and the surrounding area by promoting growth into the streetcar suburbs and other small satellite communities within the valley. Residents found that they could live away from the city center and continue to enjoy the advantages of urban life. In an era of little or no mass communication, these maps gave city promoters a unique way in which to attract visitors, investors, and settlers to their town.

While not an exhaustive list of growth influences, these factors helped to physically shape Boise growth considerably during the first seventy years of its existence.

Boise failed to continue reinventing itself following the Great Depression as it and most other cities struggled to survive. While the population continued to grow at a slow but steady rate, the city understandably seemed content with the status quo. In recent years, the Boise Valley is again booming. Perhaps not so coincidently, the city has also conceived new ways in which to categorize itself.

Locating and handling maps for this project proved at times more difficult than first imagined. While finding maps of Boise and the surrounding area is far from challenging, finding and obtaining the appropriate maps happened to be much more so.

The Idaho State Library and Archives has a large number of fine maps available and for a nominal fee, they will copy them. The Boise Public Library maintains a collection of historical maps and though they are not always available for casual browsing, the staff is more than willing to dig up requested documents. The Sanborn Map Company has much of their collection available online though it may not be available unless accessed through a subscribing institution such as a local university.

Finally, the City of Boise has a wonderful collection of historical maps in their archives though they are still working on organizing and labeling them so research may require a bit of digging. Many of the maps were too large to scan with the average home scanner and required much larger equipment owned by the City of Boise, the Idaho State Historical Society, or a local copy store.

In addition, the brittleness of some of the older maps forced the use of a digital camera rather than risk running them through a scanner. Once in digital form, the shear size of some of the files required a great deal of trial and error with different software in order to find the best for managing and preparing the images for display. In the end, a combination of software titles, computers, and data storage devices allowed for workable images. Casner, Nick and Valeri Kiesig.

Boise: Black Canyon Communications, Cronon, William. New York: W. Harper Collins. Past Worlds: Collins Atlas of Archaeology. Ann Arbor: Borders Press, Jackson, Kenneth T. New York: Oxford University Press, Knox, Paul L. Urbanization: An Introduction to Urban Geography. Larsen, Lawrence H. The Urban West at the End of the Frontier. MacGregor, Carol Lynn. Founding Community in Boise, Idaho, Dissertation for PhD. University of New Mexico, McCarter, Brian.

Moffat, Riley. Population History of Western U. Cities and Towns, Lanham, Md. Pierce, W. Boise City, Idaho Illustrated. Boise: W. Reps, John. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, Pullman: Washington State University Press, Stacy, Susan M. Stilgoe, John R. Metropolitan Corridor: Railroads and the American Scene. New Haven: Yale University Press, Wells, Merle and Arthur A. I shall come out right side up yet though it sum to take me a long time to prove it. The tells an awful tale since I left home when you said I should not go as I was but a lad yet.

Yet it seems but as yesterday. Remember me to Mr family, Mr and particular to Fanny tell her I should like to hear how she.

Page 3. I took 3 months from the time she left the pl we bought to get here and everyday of this time we had to sit on a house 8 or 9 hours. We did get a good look from the top, but we rather assumed we could quickly go back up.

That, unfortunately, was not the case. Although we did find some slightly wider sections, there was no place where a car could safely turn around. In fact, most of the road by far was too narrow for two cars to pass. We did meet one motorcycle coming up, and that was not too bad. Grimes Pass Road By the time we passed the motorcycle, we had decided to go on down -- even if we had found a place where turning around was possible.

Neither of us is particularly fond of narrow roads with big drop-offs, so we simply had no desire to go back up.

Road View. Note how close the road edge is bottom Further to the southeast, a few traces of log cabins and of early mining still mark some of the camps which once existed on Cariboo Mountain. And on the north side of Snake River at Bonanza Bar, a few old cabins of the mining days still are visible across the river from the present highway. On the whole, though, the old mining camps of the Snake River placers have pretty largely disappeared.

Even the ghosts have gone. Pierce - - Located in Clearwater County. Elias D. Pierce and Wilbur F. Bassett made the first discovery of gold in Idaho, on Orofino Creek Canal Gulch in , just one mile north of the town that is now Pierce. Placerville - - Placerville was founded in December, , when thousands of miners began to enter Boise Basin in search of gold. By June , the population of Placerville had reached 2, Initially the first stop for suppliers coming into the Basin, Placerville became an important center for mining claims spread throughout the surrounding hills.

Idaho City, its chief rival, had a longer mining season and soon eclipsed Placerville to become the main Boise Basin town and the country seat of Boise County. Unlike the earlier Idaho mining areas of Florence and Pierce, the Boise Basin mines provided good returns over a period of many years, the peak years being through For that reason the Boise Basin rush was significant in early Idaho settlement, bringing a substantial number of people who stayed to establish towns and providing a population base for retailing and agricultural settlement in the Boise Valley.

Boise Basin had a higher percentage of families than did most mining areas, and the major towns, like Placerville and Idaho City, acquired substantial buildings, lodges, churches, schools, and post offices. Placerville was unusual in that it even had s street grid and town squire, known locally as the "plaza". Additionally it had an Episcopal church, thirteen saloons, seven restaurants, five butcher shops, five blacksmith shops, as well as hotels, druggists, express agents, bakeries, livery barns, carpenters, sawmills, dressmakers and a millinery shop.