Main Street looking east from 9th St., 1890's.
Caption below the original photograph identifies the businesses on Main Street: left (north) side, l. to r., W.E. Pierce & Co. (820-829 Main), Gray & Stewart, Attorneys (820 Main), Boise Abstract Co. (820 Main), Overland Hotel, later site of the Eastman Building (800 Main); right side, l. to r., Frank R. Coffin & Bros. (745 W. Main), A. Ballot, watchmaker (813 Main), W.S. Whitehead, drugs (821 Main), Capitol Hotel (827 Main), Idaho Saddlery Co. (833 Main)
Image Credit:
Idaho State Historical Society: 1224-H
"You see, I never stayed around in town much. I stayed out with the sheep. I got married, you know, and just come to town to get supplies and then go back out with the sheep."
-W.E. Johnston JR., February 5, 1970
The evocative power of these historical photographs is enriched by historical accounts used by generous permission of the Idaho Oral History Center.
Today, following a decade of growth that is among the fastest in the US, Boise faces important decisions about how it will shape itself in the new millenium. Boise reaps great economic benefits from growth but faces tough issues about its identity as a place. The frustration of traffic snarls and long commutes, increasing threats to air quality and the spread of subdivisions into what was previously farmland or open foothills are products of automobile-based development. Transportation systems and their impact on the sense of place are one of the themes of this photographic essay. The term genius loci, spirit of place, originally described an uncanny sense that a landscape was actually inhabited by spirits-- in trees, rocks, streams-- whose presence was felt in subtle ways. But in more practical terms we can think of this spirit of place in terms of the experience of being somewhere with distinctive and preferably pleasing qualities.
To choose a slogan: place matters. The careful shaping of shared spaces is not simply an aesthetic matter, a luxury that can be sacrificed to economic necessity. The appearance of social environment is a product of human actions and an accurate mirror of the quality of our social interactions.