Boise Historic District
a.k.a. Old Boise
5th and 6th Sts., both sides of Idaho and Main Sts., Boise, IDA number of Boise's interesting and architecturally important early buildings survive in close enough proximity to one another that they lend themselves to historic district designation as a device for preservation and commercial development. These objectives are not only compatible, but they are also probably inseparable in a city growing as Boise is at the present time. Lending encouragement to this view is the fact that the merchants in the area have given the project of a historic district their blessing and have organized their own, association. Old Boise is of significance historically because it contains the largest group of early commercial structures extant.
Architecturally, the buildings in the district are interesting because the majority were built about the turn of the century, with most designed by two architectural firms in Boise, Tourtellotte and Hummel (now Hummel, Hummel, Jones and Shawver) and Campbell and Wayland (now Cline, Smull, Hamill, and Associates). The original drawings are still on file with these two firms. Exceptionally five earlier buildings (1885, 1893, 1895) also give character reminiscent of this small frontier town that was.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
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.