Artesian Water Co. Pumphouse and Wells
Off ID 21, Boise, IDThe Artesian Hot and Cold Water Company pumphouse is significant in architecture, engineering, and energy because the surviving structure was built to accommodate Idaho's pioneer application of a natural hot water heating system. Commercial geothermal power systems soon followed in Italy (1904), New Zealand, Iceland, Mexico, Salvador, Japan, and Russia, as well as in one or two other places in the United States, including a similar space heating arrangement in Klamath Falls, Oregon, and a major electric power development in Lake county, California.
The uses of the geothermal resource were both public and private. Boise became a well known resort, with the opening of her elaborate Natatorium in 1892. Fine homes were built along Warm Springs Avenue after the Natatorium and a connecting street car line were completed. The natural hot water was piped in for space heating and domestic purposes.
A group of Boise businessmen secured an option for ten acres of land near the state penitentiary on the east edge of Boise and began drilling in December of 1890. It was announced on December 24, 1890, in the Idaho Statesman, that warm water (92) had been struck at a depth of eighty feet.
By May of 1891, two wells had been established, each about four hundred feet deep, that produced a flow of over one million gallons of water daily, at 180 degrees.
Inmates from the Idaho State Penitentiary, which borders the pumphouse property, maintained the pumps for several years. This penitentiary site was abandoned in 1973 and is now a historical park.
The pumphouse houses two wells that curently serve approximately 240 customers, including three state office buildings.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.