Boise Capitol Area District
Roughly bounded by 6th and Bannock, N. 8th, 8th, State, 5th Ana Jefferson Sts., Boise, IDBoise was designated the permanent territorial capital of Idaho in December 1864, a year and a half after the community, was founded. Capitol Square soon became an important feature of the townsite, although the territorial capitol was not actually completed until 1886. As the center of Idaho's governmental complex, the varied buildings represented in this district have importance and character of great interest. They are pleasingly bound together by some of the city's finest park areas, with large old trees in great variety. Two of these, on the Capitol grounds, were planted by visiting Presidents of the United States: Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt. The greatest value to Idaho of recognizing the Boise Capitol Area District as an architecturally significant complex lies in calling attention to the worth of Moderne structures as well as more traditional Classical revival ones. The district includes the State Capitol; the Federal Building; an important adjoining hotel that served as a major political center during the depression and for many years after that; a park and monument dedicated to Frank Steunenberg, a former governor whose assassination in 1905 led to the internationally famous conspiracy trial of William D. Haywood in 1907; and the Ada County Courthouse, located on the site of the trial. The Haywood Trial, along with some earlier significant labor cases, took place in Ada County's previous courthouse--an earlier structure in which officials of the Coeur d'Alene miners' unions decided to organize the Western Federation of Miners (a militant industrial union that provided the primary sponsorship for the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905) in 1893. The present Ada County Courthouse houses a representative collection of Works Projects Administration murals characteristic of the time it was constructed. While not a politically oriented structure, Saint Michael's Cathedral, immediately adjacent to the capitol, forms an important architectural component of this historic district.
Local significance of the district:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
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.