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City Cast Boise

People, places, and scenes from Boise's past.

Redfish Lake is one of Idaho’s crown jewels, though it used to be more colorful. For thousands of years, sockeye salmon migrated 900 miles and 6,550 vertical feet from the Pacific Ocean in numbers so plentiful that their bright red coloration gave Redfish Lake its English name. They enriched the northwestern coasts of what are now the 

U.S. and Canada, and became a keystone species

But commercial fishing, pollution, logging, and dams all led to the decline of the sockeye. Once, an estimated 150,000 salmon traveled to Redfish Lake in the Sawtooths annually, and in less than 200 years, that number was reduced to 23 returns throughout the 1990s.

In 1992, only one sockeye salmon made it to the Sawtooths, and a local hatchery worker’s daughter named him Lonesome Larry. His species had been put on the Endangered Species List the year before — where it remains — which helped create a symbol out of Lonesome Larry. After Larry’s death, then-Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus had him stuffed and put on display in his office, as the state increased work to use Idaho hatcheries as insurance against extinction.

Sockeye have certainly rebounded to an extent. Returns number in the hundreds most years, but concrete dams and their warm reservoirs still prove catastrophic for the sockeye and other anadromous (migrating between salt and freshwater) species. Those temperatures will only increase.

2014 remains the sockeye’s banner year in recent history, when 1,516 salmon returned to the Sawtooths. But, in a showing of how far we have pushed the resilient species, a heat wave wiped out a vast majority of the Columbia River’s salmon in 2015, in a year that looked to build on the previous season’s successes.

We don’t have an accurate account of returns yet for this year (they should be coming in the next couple of weeks), but the first sockeye was trapped on July 26 near Stanley. At that time, 

1,295 sockeye had made it to Lower Granite Dam

 outside Lewiston, which was heralded as a “fantastic” rebound from dismal numbers the year before.

few hundred more sockeye made it to Lower Granite

 in August. The last dam count brought the total to 1,556, down from 2,087 last year. Still, 1,556 is more than 2020 and 2021 combined, and the highest count since 2014. But anadromous fish won’t just spawn anywhere — they either are trapped and spawned, make it to their spawning waters, or die trying.

The History of Lonesome Larry

Boise History

A lot of readers recognized this photo in front of Boise High School, and sent me some tips that helped me learn a bit more about it. I found it at Boise Bodega, but some recognized it from the Ram or 13th Street Pub & Grill — it’s been circulated quite a bit.

The picture was taken by R. Harold Sigler, a local photographer who worked from the 1910s to the 1950s and has his own 

digitized collection at the Idaho State Archives

. I learned about it thanks to a reader who works at the Idaho State Historical Society, who found 

The photo depicts Boise High’s 1933 eleven-member girl’s tumbling team. I’d have loved to find out whose idea it was to spell out “BOISE,” but that remains a mystery. The tumbling team got the only non-traditional photo out of the 

nine Boise High sports teams Sigler photographed

While several people knew of connections to one or more of the girls, I haven’t been able to track down a 1933 Boise High yearbook yet, and I only got one name from readers.

Lucille Eason is one of the girls comprising the “E,” according to her granddaughter and a former neighbor, both of whom wrote in about the photo. Eason passed away at the age of 100.

“She was a firecracker of a person and we miss her in the neighborhood,” her former neighbor Alita said. “Never a dull moment with that one.”

Apparently, there’s also a museum being planned for the basement of Boise High, where this photo will be displayed.

If you find out or know more about this photo, I’m still curious, so send it my way!

A lot of readers recognized this photo in front of Boise High School, and sent me some tips that helped me learn a bit more about it. The photo depicts Boise High’s 1933 eleven-member girl’s tumbling team.

The History Behind This Iconic Boise High Photo

Idaho’s conservatism is rivaled only by Deep South states. But like Alabama or Mississippi, Idaho also has a history of spirited political organization and demonstration by and for those in its lowest classes. In fact, Idaho miners not only put the state’s labor movement on the map, but played a key role in the nation’s labor movement 130 years ago.

The story starts in the Coeur d’Alene mining district in Shoshone County. To this day, 

 than all the other mines in the U.S., combined.

When companies began moving into the area in 1885, 

they employed miners by the thousands, and cheaply

. Working underground, miners and car drivers (“car men”) made $3.50 in a 10- hour day — equal to about $11.70 an hour in 2023. When an economic depression began in the early 1890s, wages were the first thing to go.

The miners’ primary bartering power was in their union, and they began a strike in the spring of 1892. Breaking with recent tradition, all mine workers struck together 

rather than dividing workers into “skilled” union members

 and “unskilled labor,” nonunion workers.

The strike also marked an important development for 

Irish Americans, who played key roles as union leaders

 during the push for labor rights in Idaho and across the western U.S.

Amid the depression, the strike escalated. The Coeur d’Alene Miners’ Union, consisting of unions from four mines, openly intimidated “scabs,” or nonunion workers that mine owners brought in.

The Idaho miners’ efforts were in tandem with one of the most notorious strike busting maneuvers of American history, with one of the biggest names in business. In early July 1892, 

Andrew Carnegie’s public pro-labor reputation was ruined

 when he ordered armed Pinkertons to break a steelworker’s strike in Pennsylvania.

Days later, Coeur d’Alene union miners discovered that their union secretary was an undercover Pinkerton, and blew up a mill with dynamite, and killed several nonunion men in a brief battle. With limited violence, workers took over the four area mines for six days.

On July 12, mine owners sent away their nonunion workers, but won the assistance of Idaho Gov. Norman Willey, who declared martial law in Shoshone County and sent federal troops to the mines, with the support of President William Henry Harrison.

The troops succeeded in suppressing union activity, and arrested 600 miners, all of whom were eventually released without charges.

Some of those miners went on to hold legislative offices in Idaho, and several contributed to the organization of one of the most important and forceful labor unions in U.S. history: 

The Western Federation of Miners in Butte, Montana

, which led the labor movement for decades.

Idaho's reputation for conservative politics is renowned. But at one time, miners put Idaho at the forefront of a national labor movement.

How Miners Put Idaho Labor On the Map

Idaho's Surprising History in the Labor Movement

Back in June, City Cast Boise talked with citizen historian Graham McBride 

The scandal was one of Boise’s biggest introductions to the national spotlight in modern American history. The economic boom post-World War II was humming along, but the lines dictating who benefited from that boom were becoming ever clearer. In East Coast cities and in the South, Black soldiers were returning home, not to open arms but to worse segregation and treatment than they’d seen exhibited by their fascist enemies. Women were ardently agitating for social, economic, and political freedoms of varying degrees depending on their race. And Christianity was contrasted with the new global foe of communism.

Sleepy little Boise was paying attention. This story officially begins in 1955, which means that the 

“Lavender Scare” tactics of running LGBTQ+ people out of government positions

 — which were often part and parcel with the “Red Scare” — had been going on for a couple of years.

In October of 1955, a Boise police officer began investigating men who were allegedly having sex with teenage boys. The Idaho Statesman covered the allegations daily, and very quickly the investigation extended to consenting adults.

The moral panic brought national media attention, especially when the scandal increasingly focused on well-known men who, by all accounts, were only having sex with other adult men. When the Ada County sheriff drove to San Francisco in pursuit of one of these men, most of the town was ready for the saga to die down.

“Boise was known for the ‘Boys of Boise’ and I think it was embarrassing,” 

Alan Virta, a former Boise State librarian

, told me a few years ago. “And people didn’t want to bring it up. Plus, the whole situation broke families up and caused a lot of grief in Boise.”

However, a Christian civic and service organization known as the 

Jaycees club dedicated itself to making a pronouncement

 of Boise’s allegiance to Christianity — and thus against communism and homosexuality. In December 1955, less than two months after the “Boys of Boise” scandal, they dug the hole that has since cradled the cross on top of Table Rock. By Jan. 8, 1956, it was finished.

At the time, that land was owned by the Idaho Department of Corrections. A 1971 ruling against a similar cross in Eugene, Ore. — due to a concern over having a religious symbol so publicly exhibited on publicly-owned land — worried the Jaycees. They asked to buy the land from the Board of Corrections, who turned it over to the Board of Lands, who auctioned it off to the Jaycees for $100.

Another two decades passed, and the ACLU argued that the public hadn’t been notified of the auction, but their argument was shot down. The news made its way to influential atheist Rob Sherman, in Chicago, who delivered a speech at Boise State drumming up support for legal action to remove the cross.

That backfired, and led to a crowd of 10,000 marching from the Boise Depot to the Capitol in support of keeping the cross, which is the largest political demonstration that I’m aware of in Idaho history (and I’ve been searching for years).

So the cross, though it’s had many cosmetic procedures, has stood for nearly 70 years now. It’s one of Boise’s most recognizable landmarks, though for many, what it communicates about our city’s values has often gone unquestioned.

The Echoes of Boise’s Hidden Queer History

The City Cast Boise podcast talked with citizen historian Graham McBride about the “Boys of Boise” scandal.

Boise History

The History of Lonesome Larry

The History Behind This Iconic Boise High Photo

Idaho's Surprising History in the Labor Movement

Latest articles

The History of the Table Rock Cross