So what do people believe about Idaho? Some say cartographers made Idaho up simply because they needed to fill in something between Utah and Canada on a map to create a barrier. Others believe something deeper is happening and that the government is involved in some sort of mind-control where they are coercing people to say that Idaho is real.
For whatever reason that would be is beyond me. My favorite belief about Idaho's existence is that it is only but "a state of mind. Or maybe we as a state only exist in the form of potatoes. The reddit user admits that "for years, the only bit of evidence that gave me faith in this alleged state is Idaho potatoes.
However, I recently discovered something. Idaho is just a name of a certain type of potato, and Idaho potatoes do not necessarily come from the state from which they are named. Idaho's commercial, residential, and agricultural customers are all eligible for net metering. Hydroelectric power plants have typically supplied more than two-thirds of Idaho's in-state generation. However, in recent years, drought and increased generation from other renewables has reduced hydropower's share of the state's total annual generation to around three-fifths.
The balance of Idaho's in-state generation is mostly supplied by natural gas and wind power. In , natural gas accounted for about almost one-fourth of Idaho's generation and wind accounted for about one-seventh. Twenty-three municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives provide the rest, and they buy almost all of their electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration BPA , which markets electricity mainly from hydroelectric facilities at federal dams in the Pacific Northwest.
Idaho's one small coal-fired power plant is an industrial combined-heat-and-power facility. Idaho's largest electric utility plans to end its coal-fired power generation purchases by The state has no commercial nuclear power plants, but the Idaho National Laboratory INL , a federal nuclear energy research center and one of the state's largest employers, was the site of the nation's first nuclear power plant. It first generated electricity in The power plant in development will be a smaller, scalable version of the widely-used light water reactor technology.
The region's transmission lines have grown increasingly congested, and projects are under way to expand capacity both to supply Idaho with electricity and to transport power among several western states including Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. In the near term, most new generating capacity planned in the region is expected to run on renewable energy sources, and transmission projects are being designed to enable development of the region's remote renewable resources.
Idaho is among the five states with the lowest average retail prices for electricity, in part because of the large proportion of generation that comes from relatively inexpensive hydropower. Idaho has no significant proved crude oil reserves and only a small amount of oil production. Idaho has no petroleum refineries. Only the southern pipeline system delivers refined products to terminals in Idaho.
Because of its small population, Idaho's total petroleum consumption is among the lowest 10 states, but its per capita petroleum use is near the national average.
Many real estate investors of the nineteenth century adopted the view of New York, land speculator Charles Butler concerning the importance of location. Louis were destined for success due to their central locations and proximity to navigable waterways.
Their attainment as major commercial metropolitan areas does not surprise many of us today. Contrary to this belief, the location of a city actually plays only a small role in its success. While location can have its advantages, it does not guarantee urban growth and development. Jane Jacobs correctly stated that one of the most common resources in the world is good locations for commercial centers and that most do not become cities.
Larsen wrote that successful urban areas originated from the promotion and building of sites, no matter how undesirable, by skilled entrepreneurs.
Writer John Reader also rejects the role of location as an explanation of why some cities prosper and instead credits economics, politics, and religion as the primary factors while acknowledging that modern cities are much more complicated. The fort served dual purposes. The soldiers were there to protect firstly the miners from local Indians who were no doubt feeling threatened by the sudden non-Indian population explosion.
By making Idaho, an official territory, the government had a stronger claim to everything within its boundaries. The day after construction of the new fort began, several men met at the Davis-Ritchey cabin to organize the town site company.
While many felt certain that the town would succeed as a supply center for the nearby mines, others were more skeptical. Among the new arrivals were several business-minded men who settled in and around Boise City in the following months. These men sought to get in on the ground floor of the burgeoning city and helped to inspire its growth. By September of , about sixteen hundred people lived within the city limits. It was typical in the nineteenth century for mining towns and mining supply towns to expand quickly within the first months and sometimes years of the first mineral strike.
Many towns during the nineteenth century failed when their single-source economic foundation vanished. Due to stiff competition, cities often could not afford to rest on their laurels. Each new gold or silver strike meant the demise of many previous boomtowns. In the Rocky Mountain ranges beginning in , each successive strike sapped established towns as residents left for the new camp. Virginia City, Nevada, developed quickly as a mining town of around twenty-five thousand by only to lose sixty percent of the population as workers exhausted the mines over the next four years.
For Virginia City, the inability to develop an agricultural foundation in the nearby mountains contributed to the decline. Boise too diversified its economic base in the early years and failed to take on the shape of typical mining towns that were often located in small, rugged spaces in canyons or on hillsides.
While Boise served some of the same purposes as a company town, it was not. Company towns tended to have uniform structures built and owned by one corporation. Early Boise was primarily a collection of private businesspersons and private business organizations hoping to profit by catering to the needs of the local miners.
Therefore, mining influenced not only the site of the city of Boise but also contributed to its early growth as a supply center for the mining towns. While Boise grew steadily in the first few years, citizens realized the necessity of alternate city identities in order to strengthen the foundation of their individual economic ventures and the town.
Mining was not stable enough to support commercial centers long-term. By , several local mining towns had declined significantly. Between and , Idaho City dropped from seven thousand to , Pioneerville from two thousand to , and Placerville from twenty five hundred to With a strong beginning as a commercial based city and now territorial capital, Boise residents next sought other avenues in order to strengthen the their new city.
One such opportunity came in the form of irrigation. Large-scale irrigation affects the city shape in a couple of notable ways. Firstly, a successful irrigation system usually promotes substantial population growth. Potentially productive land attracted settlers in great numbers in the late nineteenth-century American West.
Secondly, dams, canals, and reservoirs influenced settlement patterns in both the urban and rural areas. Close proximity to a water source allows for quicker and easier access to irrigation, therefore, communities sometimes grow toward the resource.
Initially the river kept the city of Boise isolated primarily to the north. When the city did grow to the south side, fear of flooding kept development near the banks at a minimum.
For a number of years the river and its sparsely populated shores cut a wide swath through the city. Irrigation and related construction projects, helped to change that. The effect of irrigation on the city of Boise is unmistakable as intricate canal systems, along with diversion dams, enabled locals to transport water from the Boise River to farms on the Boise Bench and other remote areas.
Before significant irrigation in the valley, farmers had to locate their farmstead within close proximity to a substantial water source, usually the Boise River. Tom Davis, for example, settled alongside the river in current day Julia Davis Park where he dug a ditch from the river to his orchard.
As county population grew, however, citizens realized the need for irrigable land beyond the riverbanks. Many looked to the large expanse of land south of Boise just below the Boise Bench as well as downstream to the west. Several small canal companies contributed to moderate early success of agriculture in the Boise Valley. From to , land under cultivation grew from virtually zero to 19, acres and by , there were farms totaling 80, acres. For some time, people of the valley realized that serious agricultural development awaited them above the Bench.
In the early s, led by Arthur D. Foote as engineer, New York, investors set about planning a much larger and more acceptable scheme to irrigate the Boise Valley.
Foote surveyed the site and proposed a main canal departing the Boise River east of the city with several lateral ditches connecting to various locations throughout the valley. Financial problems plagued the project from the beginning as several different parties took turns controlling the endeavor. Foote planned to accommodate them all by providing water to an impressive half million acres.
In , the New York Canal Company formed to finish the project resulting in a trickle of water passing through in It was evident that the scheme needed several engineering improvements to generate an effective amount of water downstream.
The lack of productivity frustrated local farmers, as the project seemed doomed to come up short of its promised potential. In , however, the United States Government bailed the irrigation project out of futility by providing the funding to improve and finish the venture. The passing of the Reclamation Act allowed for government backed development of the arid West and the Boise Valley benefited as one of the earliest locations to receive this type of assistance.
Finally, with the help of the newly formed United States Reclamation Service, a fully functioning canal opened in Though progress was painfully slow between and , the promise of irrigation brought new development to the Boise Valley with brisk growth commencing after With the construction of Arrowrock Dam upstream a few years later, the valley had a surplus of water allowing for year around irrigation.
The project changed the city of Boise and the Boise Valley by allowing many more and larger farms in areas previously almost completely void of enough water to dampen an average garden. With the increase in irrigable property, the city of Boise grew toward the hinterlands absorbing some smaller urban communities and creating others. The abundance of irrigable land brought new inhabitants and development to Boise and the surrounding valley.
It is difficult today to imagine the landscape of the Boise without the influence of irrigation. Irrigation allowed Boise to grow in all directions and at elevations previously inaccessible to any substantial amount of Boise River water. Remote agricultural communities were not the only places experiencing growth.
The city of Boise reaped the rewards of having water available above the Bench with the development of residential and commercial districts south of the city. Few Boise area maps before around even acknowledge the existence of inhabitants south of the Boise River and on the Boise Bench. As indicated on a map of Boise by the Intermountain Map Company, just a few years after the completion of the Boise Project, various agricultural, commercial, and residential developments covered the Boise Bench.
Whereas other factors played a part in this development, irrigation provided the foundation for them to build upon. Railroads, like irrigation, had a tremendous influence on city growth and development patterns in the decades around the turn of the century.
Railroads require large tracts of land usually near city centers. Once established, railroads alter nearby land use patterns near the railroad district as well as wherever the rail travels within the city. Passenger train depots attracted restaurants, hotels, and saloons providing comfort and relaxation after long trips across, for example, the sparsely populated American West.
Finally, land along the tracks exciting city centers often becomes a sort of industrial belt, attracting mostly factories and staving off all but the lowest grade of housing. The two sides usually develop much differently with one becoming home to the less affluent while the other attracts new growth and improvements.
While railroad companies themselves created many towns across the West in the late nineteenth century, Boise had already established itself as a community twenty years before connecting with the Oregon Short Line. Desperately wanting to attach to the mainline of the railroad, the city had to settle for a branch line that linked to an unexceptional depot constructed on the Boise Bench in Though not located near downtown, the depot did alter the landscape of Boise to some extent.
First, the city built a mile long dirt road extending south of town and terminating at the depot. The road included two bridges, one spanning the main channel of the Boise River, and one across a branch stream. Entrepreneurs established a few businesses near the new depot and the city developed a handful of streets behind the terminus including Stewart and Main, not to be confused with the Main Street downtown.
Nourse and P. Sonna built warehouses on Stewart directly behind the depot and overnight guests not wishing to travel into town stayed at the accommodations across the street.
If the railroad would not come to Boise, then Boise would come to the railroad. The Bench Depot pulled business activity away from the city center much to the chagrin of some city residents.
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