Boise Traction History

A few years ago, I made several trips to Boise to pay service calls to Micron and Zilog in the Treasure Valley. I was driving around one evening and found a restaurant called Bob’s Trolley House II in a small town called Eagle. I was intrigued and hungry so I stopped in. It was a typical diner, but inside they had a newspaper rack with their menus printed on newsprint, with articles about the trolley and interurban lines of the area. Some of the information I was able to confirm at the Idaho State Historical Society Museum in Boise. I also found out were Bob’s Trolley House "I" was. More on that later..

In their "menu" there were articles but without authors, with the format of the articles I would assume they are from the Boise newspaper. Streetcar service started in the City of Trees in 1891 between downtown and the Natatorium along Warm Springs Ave. Warm Springs Ave. today has big beautiful homes along it tree lined curbs. The Natatorium today I believe is where Bob’s Trolley House "I" (I just found out that "Bob" has been dropped from its name). At this location there is a brick building, which looks like a former Trolley dispatch station. This building was built much later in 1922. It had allegedly housed the streetcars. The restaurant is located in the front of the building. It is small but quaint and you could image the building in the streetcar era. The front is similar in style to the trolley building in Portland at the bottom of Vista hill at Burnside.

In 1907 Interurban service was started from Boise to the valley cities of Nampa and Caldwell. Soon the Treasure Valley had a loop Interurban line. From Boise it head west to Meridian, Nampa and Caldwell. Then the line headed back east through Eagle and Duncan back to Boise. The valley then became known as the Loop. It became popular to ride the loop as a Sunday excursion. Streets started to become paved in the late teens and early 20’s. Soon patronage decreased. By 1927 most of the streetcar and Interurban services were replaced by buses. Freight service remained on the line to Ustick as a steam hauler to serve the fruit packing industry.

Today in Boise, the railroad yards in downtown have been ripped up and urban renewal is taking over. The Boise train station has been restored but Amtrak stopped service in 1997 when the Pioneer was canceled. The station overlooks downtown Boise and the State Capitol Building. Also in Boise is the Morrison-Knudson Locomotive Plant, which has been sold and has since been renamed. For railroad action you need to drive to Nampa where UP maintains an active yard. As far as streetcars, the only remnant is the Trolley House at 1821 Warm Springs Ave. halfway between downtown and the former State Prison (now a museum and worth a visit). If anybody has any further information on the traction heritage of the Potato State, please forward it to the webmaster!

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Since the OERHS one of the mission statements of the OERHS is to educate, this page is dedicated to providing history of Traction operations in the Pacific Northwest. If you have any articles that you would like to submit, please send them to the Webmaster.

Page last updated 02/06/05