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Today's story was written by Marissa Lovell & Amanda Patchin

Boise, like many cities, is spread along a river valley.

Our river, which shares our city name, is sparkling, cold, clean, and lined with a lovely walking path, numerous shady parks, and thousands of tall trees. Blackberry brambles spill down its banks and fly fishermen can often be seen casting from the middle of its cool current on hot summer days. Floating on rafts and tubes down the Boise River has become a summer rite of passage.

Observing the Boise River's beauty, most would assume that this pristine natural feature has always been the aesthetic heart of our city. But, it hasn’t.

The early years

The Boise River creates a fertile valley between mountains to the north and a dry desert to the south. Long before settlement, the river was vital to Indigenous Tribes for hunting, fishing, harvesting, and gathering. It was also an important wintering camp thanks to the valley’s mild winter climate.

“It’s been documented that there were these major trade rendezvous in the Boise Valley right along the river that drew not only the Shoshone, Bannock, and the Northern Paiute, but other tribes as well, like the Nez Perce,” said Travis Jeffres, history programs manager for the City of Boise Department of Arts & History.

Fur trappers with the Pacific Fur Company expedition arrived in the Snake River Valley in the early 1800s, and the Boise River and surrounding rivers became important landmarks. By 1813, trapper John Reid had started a fur trading post on the lower Boise River, which led to the river being called "Reid's River" or "Reed's River" (local Bannock Indians wiped out the post completely in early 1814). Immigrants traveling The Oregon Trail began to arrive in the area around the 1840s, finding a refuge of shade and water along the river after weeks of traveling through the high desert.

Gold fever hit the area in 1862, and Fort Boise was established in the summer of 1863, which brought an influx of people to the valley seeking a new beginning. Through the early 1900s, settlement remained north of the river in an attempt to avoid seasonal floods. In an effort to control the floods and create a means for irrigation, early city leaders opted to dam the river. The dams were constructed in the following order: Diversion Dam in 1908, Arrowrock Dam in 1915, Anderson Ranch Dam in 1950, and Lucky Peak Dam in 1955.

While flooding had eased and irrigation helped develop previously unlivable areas of the valley (like the Boise Bench), the river was still not viewed with much importance. Instead, it was viewed as a waste disposal system.

Through the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s, the Boise River was a polluted, cluttered mess. People used the river to dispose of garbage, sewage, and animal waste. Up until the mid-1960s, there were three slaughterhouses that were dumping waste directly into the flowing water (ew).

The Boise River was quite literally a trash river – and it wasn’t the only one.

Fire on the river

On the scale of polluted rivers, the Boise River didn’t rank very high. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River, near Cleveland, Ohio, caught on fire. Believe it or not, it wasn’t the first time it had happened. On at least six other occasions in the previous hundred years, the industrial sludge that polluted the Cuyahoga River had burned. Fortunately for us, the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire helped motivate the United States to clean up its water, including the Boise River.

Time Magazine ran a photo of the Cuyahoga burning and that publicity, combined with the public consciousness raised by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, prompted the passing of the Clean Water Act of 1972. It wasn’t just the law, though. Communities around the US, including Boise, were beginning to recognize that our rivers could not be taken for granted.

River after river was first protected from ongoing pollution, then thoroughly cleaned and rehabilitated. Junk, metal, slag, glass, and the like had to be dredged out, picked up, and carted away. Sources of toxic chemicals had to be identified and stopped. Sewage began to be processed in treatment plants and watersheds protected from farm waste.

“It took decades for people to really recognize the river as something that we want to recreate in and use and enjoy its beauty, like we do now,” said Travis Jeffres. “For a long time, there weren’t even fish in the Boise River because it was so highly polluted.”

But all that changed with Boise City Councilman Bill Onweiler.

A path toward change

Onweiler got inspired to create a walking path along both the north and south sides of the river. He felt that the river could become the wellspring of urban renewal in a city being eaten alive by its suburbs. He shot a home movie that traced the river from a helicopter and overlaid narration describing his vision for what eventually became the beloved Boise Greenbelt.

"It just kind of opened up people's eyes to the opportunity that was sitting there in front of them, but nobody had really articulated," said Travis.

The effort to build the walking path required cleaning up the banks of the Boise River, which were littered with piles and piles of all manner of trash. According to Onweiler, in an interview for Boise State’s Blue Review, Boiseans in the 1970s were oblivious to the fact that a river flowed through their town and felt mostly indifferent to it, which makes sense, given its polluted state and relative inaccessibility. He showed his video to people all throughout the valley again and again, eventually gaining the community’s support for the ambitious Greenbelt project.

Between the burning of the Cuyahoga which prompted our nation to reconsider its rivers, and the completion of Onweiler’s vision for an accessible and beautiful path along the river, there was a lot of clean up work to do.

Although direct dumping of trash and sewage had been banned in 1949, there was still considerable illicit trash dumping for many years after and the refuse of several generations had not been dealt with. The clean up of the banks where old cars rusted and piles of bricks, cans, wire, and other refuse accumulated, took significant time.

So far as we can find, the Boise was never a burning river, however there are stories of foam piling up as food byproducts and detergents were directly discharged into the river. It seems revolting to imagine the oils and rotten food, the yellow foams and slimy sludges, and even raw sewage floating on the water. But we have the capacity to be revolted by such imaginings precisely because in a single generation, people rejected the careless use of the river as a dumping ground and began to consider its potential for beauty.

Creating the Boise Greenbelt

The first phase of the Greenbelt was opened in 1975. The original twelve planned miles have become a total of over forty as the path stretches from Lucky Peak to Eagle.

While the Greenbelt helped transformed the Boise River into the beautiful amenity and recreation corridor that it is today, it wasn't exactly met with unanimous support (what municipal project is, ya know?).

Many thought the Greenbelt project was a "path to nowhere" – and in a way it was, but it also wasn't. Julia Davis Park had been around since 1907 and Ann Morrison Park had been around since 1959, yet they weren't formally connected.

"These major municipal parks had been around for a very long time and situated along the river, so it just made sense for people, pedestrians, bicyclists to be able to connect those with this kind of thoroughfare," said Travis. "The infrastructure was already there."

Today, the Greenbelt connects 10 different parks, known by as the "Ribbon of Jewels". Boise State University sprawls along the Boise River's southern shore. Zoo Boise, the Boise Art Museum, the Idaho State Historical Museum, Idaho Black History Museum, and Discovery Center of Idaho are just steps from the river on its northern shore. In Whitewater Park in Garden City, the river has been manipulated to create an urban surfing wave. And if you head the other way, toward Lucky Peak, you can take in the natural habitat that has flourished along the Boise River while strolling the Bethine Church Trail.

Walking or riding the Greenbelt is always a top suggestion to visitors and newcomers. Floating the river is on everyone's summer bucket list. Anglers find mid-day peace throwing a few lines on their lunch break before pedaling back to the office.

Who would have thought that 60 years ago, some people didn't even know Boise had a river? Or that it was a legit trash river?

We are all forever in debt to those who saw potential through pollution, and worked to create the incredible Boise River that we know and love today.

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

Marissa & Amanda

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