When President Benjamin Harrison rolled into Boise, the state of Idaho was less than a year old.
“This is a very bright scene, beautiful, and I hope instructive and inspiring to us all as American citizens,” Harrison said to a crowd gathered around the porch of the Overland Hotel, at 8th and Main Streets. “It is my great pleasure to stand for a little while this morning in the political capital of this fresh and new State.”
From his inaugural 1891 visit to President Joe Biden’s climate trip in 2021, here are a few of the most notable presidential visits to the Gem State’s capital.
Obama’s ‘Fourth Quarter’ Visit to Boise State
Thousands gathered to see former President Barack Obama at Boise State University during his final months in office. (Obama White House Archives)
In 2015, President Barack Obama dutifully referenced Boise State’s football success, and said his visit came in the “fourth quarter” of his time in office.
What makes this visit most notable is that it marked the end of a tradition, though no one knew it at the time: from President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to Obama, every U.S. president visited Idaho. That is, until President Donald Trump took office, and Idaho had to wait until Biden came to Boise to pick the tradition back up.
Theodore Roosevelt’s Multi-Stop Visit
Back when Idaho was on its way to becoming a Democratic stronghold (oh, how the tables turn), President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the Gem State’s most frequent visitors among presidents.
In 1911, he came to three cities: Moscow for the university and agriculture, Boise because of its seat as the capital, and Wallace, because it was on the national map for its mining prowess despite its size. The region disproportionately influenced the nation’s labor movement in the late 20th century.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘Love Letter’ to Boise
In 1937, many Americans were at their wits’ end and lacking inspiration as the Great Depression dragged on. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who Idahoans supported at the voting booth each chance they got, seemed to find some inspiration while visiting Boise’s North End for an-hour-and-a-half in September 1937.
He and Eleanor Roosevelt had stopped in Pocatello earlier that day, and were on their way to the dedication of the Bonneville Dam. His brief visit, which included an impromptu speech praising the City of Trees, was recently commemorated in a new plaque at 13th and Fort Streets.
“I shall never forget this morning,” FDR said. “When I look back on today’s visit to Boise, I shall think chiefly of two things — first, your beautiful, tree-lined streets, and, secondly, your children. I am not just thinking of the … more or less petty problems of the day, the quarrels and disputes of the moment. I am trying to think about the bigger objectives of American life. I am trying to think about how we are going to make a better America for those children I passed this morning.”
We can’t mention FDR without mentioning Executive Order 9066, especially this week. On Feb. 19, 1942, FDR signed the order forcing the dispossession, relocation, and incarceration of roughly 122,000 Japanese Americans. About 13,000 of them were taken to the Minidoka internment camp in southern Idaho.
Honorable Mention: Vice President Nixon’s Faulty Plane
Many years before he became president but in the final months of his vice presidency, Richard Nixon paid Boise a visit. The most remarkable thing about it? U.S. history was very nearly changed by the visit, because one of the engines on Nixon’s plane gave out on his way to Boise.
