The Idaho Soldiers' Home, located in Ada County, a short distance west of Boise City, has within the last two years been materially improved by the addition of a new hospital. The building is 42x73 feet with roomy covered porches on three sides, and is constructed of stone with brick veneer for the first, and shingles for the second story. It makes a fine and attractive appearance and when neatly furnished, as it doubtless will be, it will be a slight remembrance, not of the generosity, but of the gratitude of the people of the State for the services rendered the Country by those old Veterans in the dark days of the Civil War. One hundred and twenty-four row answer to roll call in this comfortable hostelry. Most of them are over the age of sixty years. Another decade and most of them will have answered their last roll call on this earth. Let us put what joy we can in their hearts during that time.


This institution is located on a section of land belonging to the State, bordering on the northwestern edge of the Town of Blackfoot, the County Seat of Bingham County. The section has an ample water right for the purpose of irrigation and is nearly all under cultivation. The building is of brick, with two wings and stands in the center of a fine grove of trees with a fine apple orchard a short distance from the building. The kitchen garden consists of about thirty acres, and the quantity of vegetables produced is wonderful, most of the labor being done by the inmates.

The inmates also do the largest part of the work on the farm. Wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa hay, potatoes and other vegetables are produced in large quantities. The institution produces sufficient wheat, beef, pork, mutton, potatoes, apples and vegetables for the use of the institution. The modern humane treatment of patients is the method here. The straight jacket is never used except to preserve the life of the patient. Out-door life and moderate work are encouraged, but there is no driving. The buildings have been freshly painted inside and out and many improvements have been made in the last two years. The health of the inmates is remarkably good. There are now 257 inmates in the institution. This institution has an endowment of 50,000 acres of land.


On March 7th, 1905, the Legislature of the State passed an act authorizing Governor Gooding to appoint a Commission of four persons, with himself as chairman, to select a site in some one of the Northern Counties of the State on which to locate an Asylum for the Insane, to be known as the Northern Idaho Insane Asylum. Also authorizing him to appoint a Board of Directors, consisting of three members, for .the purpose of erecting, equipping and managing the institution, and directed the. State Land Board to set aside 40,000 acres of .the land granted to the State by Congress from that clause of the Act granting 150,000 acres, "For other State, Charitable, Educational or Penal and Reformatory Purposes," as a permanent fund for the exclusive use and benefit of this Asylum. The Blackfoot Asylum, under the same Act, received a specific donation of 50,000 acres. And the Legislature then appropriated $30,000.00 to commence the work.

Governor Gooding, who had strongly urged in his message to the Legislature, the necessity of such an institution, in the Northern part of the State, with his usual energy and mental grasp of the needs of the State, at once appointed Dr. J. W. Givens, who was then Medical Superintendent of the Blackfoot Asylum; James Stevens, Robert Aikman and Robert Hayes as the Commission to select and locate the site, and appointed J. K. Bell, J. G. Rowton and J. T. Taylor the Board of Directors.

In the month of May following the Commission, after visiting numerous places in the Northern Counties, selected 100 acres on the north bank of the Clearwater River in Nez Perce County, about forty miles above Lewiston and about one mile west of the Town of Orofino, at the mouth of Orofino Creek, on the headwaters of which Captain Pierce, as a gold-digger, made the beginning of Idaho. The Board of Directors at once appointed Dr. Givens as Medical Director of the incipient asylum and Supervisor of its yet-to-be farm. The site selected was a Nez Perce Indian allotment, bordering on the river, the title to which had to be procured by condemnation proceedings. Besides the aspect of this allotment, as seen from the window of a railroad car, was so forbidding that the eye quickly passed to the pine-clad hi1]s beyond, and of those seemingly uninviting bills the Board purchased 145 acres, making 245 in all.

To this seemingly unenviable spot, Dr. Givens, in July, 1905, removed from the Insane Asylum at Blackfoot, taking with him twenty male and five female inmates of that institution, together with horses, wagons, farming and other implements, providing himself with tents for shelter, and began work on the first terrace, about 150 feet above the Indian allotment, chopping down trees, piling up cord-wood, blowing out stumps, excavating cellars, burning brick, quarrying granite, plowing, harrowing, leveling, planting apple, peach, plum, apricot, pear and cherry trees, grape vines, strawberries, roses and flowers innumerable. In a year afterwards the transformation scene had only one parallel in the state, and perhaps nowhere else, and that is the Twin Falls irrigated tract. Two years before that time the visitor to Twin Falls saw a lot of men engaged in constructing a dam across the great river, another lot with teams and scrapers, throwing up great embankments—that was all. No, not all. There was the sagebrush—sage-brush, as far as the eye could see and the inevitable jack-rabbit. Two years later the visitor stood beside a town of over 2,000 people, and looked over a tract of 200,000 acres dotted with houses and homes, surrounded with field after field of ripening grain, tossing and undulating in the golden sunlight like the waves on the bosom of a gentle sea.

The transformation, in extent, of course, is microscopic compared with that of Twin Falls; nor does the landscape resemble it in the least. The resemblance consists in the change wrought by the genius of man. Here were hills and slopes and irregular mounds covered with timber standing, timber falling, grown up with fern and weed and tangled underbrush. The site chosen for the building stands near the center of a vast amphitheatre, the river and bottom land forming the background for a distance of over two miles, and the arena stretching out in front for over a mile, gently ascending until it terminates in an irregular semi-circle of pine-clad bills from two to three hundred feet above the site. On this entrancing spot stands a brick structure 125x73 feet, three stories high—the future home of Idaho's unfortunate children. Look not into the future. The past and present is occupation enough. Here is fifty acres of cultivated land, which last year was a wilderness, now luxuriant with the growth of fruit trees, corn, potatoes, peas, beans, carrots, parsnip, vines, squash and melon and yonder a field of waving grain. This is civilization putting forth its best effort to comfort its unfortunate and defective ones.

The elevation is 1,000 feet above sea level. The climate is healthful and salubrious. The temperature equable, rarely going below zero, and while there are some hot days, the nights are always cool and refreshing. The Commissioners might have searched for months and not have found a more picturesque spot on the scenic rivers of the State.

The treatment of the patients here is similar to that at Blackfoot. The mentally and bodily capable lead an outdoor life and are encouraged to moderate daily labor.

Of the twenty-five inmates brought from Blackfoot, four have been cured and discharged. Eighteen female patients have been transferred also from Blackfoot, and twelve new patients added during the last year.


This institution was established by an Act of the Legislature passed in 1893. The Act declares the purpose of the institution to be "For the care, protection, training and education of delinquent, dependent and neglected children, and to provide for the care, control and discharge of juvenile offenders." The Act creates a board of four persons to be appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate, two of whom shall be men and two women, and constitutes the Governor and State Superintendent of Public Instruction ex-officio members of the Board. This Board is authorized to control, and manage the school, and to appoint the Superintendent and other necessary teachers and help.

The Superintendent is to conduct the school under rules and regulations prescribed by the Board. The Act appropriated $50,000.00 for the purpose of acquiring grounds and the erection of buildings, and the buildings are directed to be constructed on the cottage plan. The Act establishing and creating this institution further declares that the juveniles shall be taught all the common school branches and such industrial and manual training in the boys' department as shall prepare them for active, honest work in life, and in the girls' department, in addition to the common school branches, domestic economy. All below the ages of eight and eighteen -who are convicted of felony, except murder and manslaughter, or who for want of parental care are growing up in mendicancy, vagrancy, or incorrigibility on complaint proved, shall be sentenced to this institution and shall remain there until the age of 21 years unless sooner paroled or discharged.

Under this Act the Governor was authorized to appoint a commission of five persons to select and secure grounds in Fremont County, on which to locate and erect; the buildings, and finally it was made the duty of the State Land Board to set aside 40,000 acres of the omnibus donation granted in the admission bill "For other State charitable, educational or penal and reformatory purposes," as a perpetual fund for the maintenance of this institution.

The Commission selected 253 acres of land near St. Anthony. No better land or richer soil could be found - nowhere in this State. Although the school has been opened a little over two years, it has now only 68 inmates, and is reported to be making excellent progress under the superintendency of Mr. J. T. Humphries, who with the aid of some seven or eight assistants, both male and female, is teaching these children, besides the common school branches, farming, dairying, gardening, carpentering and tailoring.


This institution is located in Ada County almost touching the northeast limits of the City of Boise on the extension of Warm Springs Avenue. The old buildings of Territorial days are being gradually displaced with much better and more comfortable buildings. A female ward, completely isolated from the other buildings, has been erected within the past two years and a block of cells in the main building is Bearing completion. The labor of the inmates has been utilized in their construction. The health of the inmates has been excellent, and the death rate remarkably low—lower, perhaps, than any institution of the kind in the world. Only one death occurred in the two years ending November 31, 1906.

The parole system is in force and the present Warden, Mr. E. L. Whitney, highly recommends the policy. During his administration, which covered the two years ending December 31st, 1906, twenty-four prisoners were paroled, and only two of the twenty-four violated their parole. The average daily number of inmates during the past year was 220, an increase of 28 over the previous year.

[Source: Tullidge's Histories, (volume II); By Edward William Tullidge; Publ. 1889; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]