New Fort Boise (1863-1912)
| Fort Boise | |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Location: | About 0.5 mi (0.80 km). NE of State Capitol |
|---|---|
| Nearest city: | Boise, Idaho |
| Built: | 1863 |
| Architect: | U.S. Army |
| NRHP Reference#: | 72000433 |
| Added to NRHP: | November 9, 1972 |
On July 4, 1863, the Union Army founded a new Fort Boise during the Civil War. (Brevet) Major Pinckney Lugenbeel was dispatched from Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory to head east and select the site in the Idaho Territory, announced the same day by Territorial Governor William Wallace at the first Idaho capital in Lewiston. The new location was 50 miles to the east of the old Hudson's Bay Company fort, up the Boise River at the site that would develop as the city of Boise. The new military post was constructed because of massacres on the Oregon Trail after the old fort was abandoned.
The new fort was near the intersection of the Oregon Trail and the roads connecting the Owyhee (Silver City) and Boise Basin (Idaho City) mining areas, both booming at the time. The fort's site had the necessary combination of grass, water, wood, and stone.
With three companies of infantry and one of cavalry, Major Lugenbeel set to work building quarters for five companies. They built a mule-driven sawmill on Cottonwood Creek, got a lime kiln underway, and opened a sandstone quarry at the small mesa known as Table Rock. Lugenbeel's greatest problem was the lure of the Boise Basin mines - more than 50 men deserted within the first few months.
Other names for the fort were the Boise Barracks and Camp Boise.
After 49 years at the fort, the U.S. Army left the site in 1912. The Idaho National Guard occupied it until 1919, when the Public Health Service obtained it for a center for veterans of World War I and tuberculosis patients. The foothills above Ft. Boise were used for gunnery practice. In 1997 during rehab efforts following the Foothills Fire, firefighters found several unexploded 75-mm artillery shells and other ordnance.
In 1938, the Veterans Administration acquired the site. Its successor, the DVA, operates the Boise VA Medical Center. In 1957, the Idaho Elks Rehabilitation Hospital was built on a portion of the old fort's land. The Federal Building (& U.S. Court House), built in 1968, also occupies a section of the site. It was renamed for former U.S. Senator Jim McClure in December 2001.
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Famous quotes containing the word fort:
“So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the fifty-cents-a-day professionals riding the outposts of the nation, from Fort Reno to Fort Apache, from Sheridan to Stark. They were all the same. Men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States.”
—Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)