The "new" Fort Boise was established in 1863 near the intersection of the Oregon Trail and the roads to the Boise Basin and Owyhee mining districts, about 50 miles (80 km) east of the original site on the Snake River. The site is now occupied by the Veterans Administration.

I went to grade school here, when the trees were a lot taller. The building is long gone.

Stage to Idaho City, which is in the Boise Basin, a series of mountain-girt valleys north of Boise. They were the site of a major gold rush in the 1860s, and are still a destination for modern gold seekers. The Boise Basin gold rush is the setting for my book, The Duchess of Ophir Creek.

Boise's first passenger depot, possibly around 6th & Myrtle. Before the spur line was built to Boise, the through trains went to Nampa and one had to transfer to a local to reach Boise.

The old City Hall in Boise. It's gone now, replaced by a much less interesting structure.

This spectacular stretch of the Snake River has recently been included in a new a public park combined with a wetland restoration project. It's in the canyon a little way west of the Perrine Bridge.

Diversion Dam sends water to Lake Lowell, 40 miles away, through the New York Canal. The canal ran behind the house where I lived in the early 1940s, and was a major source of fascination to all of us kids in the neighborhood. One of my first grade schoolmates drowned in it.

The Copper Mining District, in Custer County, is apparently no longer called that, and may not be active anymore. Mt. McCaleb, pictured here, stands 11,682 feet (3560 m).

Boise High School. The white building has been there since around 1904. My parents met at Boise High.

Where my maternal grandmother worked as a hotel maid for many years. I'm not sure of its location, but it was somewhere around 11th and Grove.

This wonderful Moorish-style buiulding was torn down sometime in the early 1930s. I remember the rollercoaster that surrounded the building, but was too young to ride it before it was also torn down. The pool, uncovered by then, was where I didn't learn to swim.

I remember this building but am pretty sure the doors were larger then. Even in the 1940s, fire trucks were wider than the old pumpers shown.

One of the Carnegie libraries funded by the Carnegie foundation in the early 20th Century. When I was a regular user, the children's department had enormous murals illustrating Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid. I wonder what happened to them.

The Trail Creek Road goes from Sun Valley to Mackey, but I couldn't find these curves on Google Earth.

Where the ailing and terminal poor were cared for. An uncle of mine spent some time there. It was on Fairview Avenue, possibly at its intersection with Cole Road.

The Idaho Penitentiary, a place we kids were threatened with if we didn't behave. It's now a museum.

The heart of downtown Boise, even now. It sure looks a lot different, though.

Now known as Municipal Park. The property where my granmother and great aunt lived was just north of the park, across the railroad tracks. The tracks are gone, replaced by a trail, and the site of the first house I lived in is now a plant nursery.