Mining towns of the 1800s generally sprang up quickly and with little planning. Boise’s founders, however, platted and planned the town prior to any serious construction allowing for a more organized city than others of the time. Therefore, maps of early Boise depict an urban area with uniform streets and equal lot sizes within the city limits. The relatively flat site, reasonably void of major natural obstacles, allowed for the standardized layout of the town in

U.S. Assay Office, built from Table Rock sandstone in 1870, became a transit point for gold from the Boise Basin mines. The National Register of Historic Places, Library of Congress.

its early stages. Mining towns located in the nearby Boise Basin and Owyhee Mountains often succumbed to the will of mountains and streams when developing their city design. Mining communities located in narrow canyons, on the sides of hills, or along the banks of meandering rivers were commonplace during the gold and silver rushes of the nineteenth century. In subsequent years, other factors led to the establishment of new sections of Boise in a less ordered arrangement than in the original plat.