Boise, explained
Albertsons Stadium is the football stadium of Boise State University, sitting on the university’s campus just south of downtown Boise along the Boise River. Its playing surface is blue rather than green because the university chose to make the color part of its identity when it installed synthetic turf in 1986 — a decision that … Read more
What is the Morrison Center? The Morrison Center for the Performing Arts is Idaho’s largest performing arts facility, built on the campus of Boise State University and owned and operated by the university. It opened in 1984 and functions as the primary home for opera, ballet, orchestral music and touring theatrical productions in the Boise … Read more
The Egyptian Theatre is a 1927 movie palace on Main Street in downtown Boise, built in the Egyptian Revival style that swept American architecture after the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. It is Egyptian because its owners deliberately borrowed that imagery — columns, winged sun disks, sphinxes — to sell a sense of exotic … Read more
The Boise Depot is the former Union Pacific passenger station built in 1925 on the bench south of downtown, known for its Spanish Mission Revival bell tower. Platt Gardens is the formal, city-maintained lawn and garden that surrounds the depot building and terrace. Together they form one landmark site: a historic building set inside a … Read more
Can you go inside the Idaho State Capitol? Yes. The Idaho State Capitol is a working government building open to the public free of charge during business hours, and its rotunda, four legislative wings, and public galleries can all be walked through on a self-guided basis. There is no admission fee and no requirement to … Read more
The Idaho State Capitol is the seat of Idaho’s state government in downtown Boise, a domed sandstone building completed in stages between 1905 and 1920. It is heated by geothermal water because Boise sits above a natural hot-water aquifer, and the state taps that heat directly through a dedicated well and pipe system rather than … Read more
The Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial is a free, outdoor public memorial in downtown Boise dedicated to the Jewish diarist Anne Frank and, more broadly, to human rights history and education. It sits along the Boise River Greenbelt and combines a bronze statue of Frank with a long wall of quotations and interpretive panels on … Read more
The Boise Depot is a former passenger railway station built in 1925 by the Union Pacific Railroad, standing on a bluff at the south end of Capitol Boulevard. Its Mission Revival design — a tiled bell tower, arched arcades, stucco walls — copies the look of Spanish mission churches in California, a style Union Pacific … Read more
Zoo Boise is a city-owned zoo in Julia Davis Park, operated by Boise Parks and Recreation, holding a mixed collection of native Idaho species and animals from Africa, Asia and South America. Its conservation fee is a small surcharge added to every admission ticket, set aside in a dedicated fund and distributed to wildlife conservation … Read more
The Old Idaho Penitentiary is a decommissioned territorial and state prison on the east side of Boise, built beginning in 1870 and used to hold inmates from 1872 until 1973. It is now a museum operated by the Idaho State Historical Society, and yes — the public can go inside, walking through original cellblocks, the … Read more
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