On a high-desert plateau of the Snake River Plain in southwestern Idaho, Boise, the "City of Trees," began as an encampment on the Oregon Trail along the Boise River. Natives were soon after displaced, and by 1864, a town site was platted north of the river, abutting the garrison at Fort Boise. Early settlers found livelihoods as merchants, supplying miners in the Boise Basin, where gold was discovered in 1862. Boiseans experienced difficulty accepting...