Reclamation Service Boise Project Office

This two-story red brick building next to Dora Larsen Park was built from 1911 to early 1912 for the Boise Project Office of the Reclamation Service, a federal agency tasked with building irrigation projects in the Western states. The office building continued to be used by the agency for decades. In 2006, the Bureau of Reclamation built a new office building a half mile north and the federal government sold the S. Broadway building to the Idaho Historical Society. The Society leased the building to a private school. Next, staff from the Idaho History Museum were located there. The building was vacant in early 2020 and offered for lease. Currently, occupational therapists who work with parolees from the Idaho Department of Corrections have offices in the building. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 2010 for its importance in architecture and the history of water conservation.

The United States Reclamation Service (now the Bureau of Reclamation) was created by the federal government in 1902 as a branch of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The new service was mainly funded through the sale of public lands and aimed to bring large tracts of land in the Western states under irrigation. In the nineteenth century, most efforts at irrigation projects were privately funded. The Carey Act was passed in 1894 to involve the federal government, who agreed to transfer up to one million acres to each state. Under the Carey Act, private funding for development of large-scale irrigation projects was encouraged, with the payoff being selling land to those settlers who would use the water from the new dams, reservoirs, and canals. Lack of willing investors became a problem, so the federal government agreed to build the projects.

The first Boise offices of the Reclamation Service were set up in 1903 in several rented rooms in the Sonna Building (the 900 block of Main St.). The Boise Project was authorized in 1905 and was initially tasked with irrigating lands along the Boise River. By 1909, the growing agency needed nine rooms in their new location on S. 8th St. in the Shaw Block; in a few more years, they expanded to nineteen rooms in the building. In 1911, the federal government purchased undeveloped land away from the busy downtown to build a dedicated building for the Boise Project office, a warehouse, and a railroad siding. Construction soon began by local contractors Whiteway-Lee Construction Company, headed by Joseph Sullivan, Augustus S. Whiteway, and C. Herbert Lee. The federal agency moved into their new office building in early 1912, which could comfortably fit about thirty employee offices. The Boise Project engineers went on to construct the Boise River Diversion Dam, the Main (now New York) Canal, the Deer Flats Embankments, and other irrigation systems. The Reclamation Service, along with the Boise Project Board of Controls, established in 1927, shared the building for decades. The warehouse and railroad siding are gone.

The two-story plus basement commercial structure is L-shaped, with one wing parallel to S. Broadway. Each of the two wings are about 70 feet long by 30 feet wide. Inside the angle where the two segments meet is the main entrance, facing southwest, with a three-sided concrete-slab porch. A hipped roof covers the building, with four dormers as attic vents. A flagpole originally topped a flat portion of the roof's center. An exterior metal fire escape was added to the east side of the building.

Both the first and second floors were designed as office spaces for the Reclamation Services. The main entry led to a vestibule which accessed the main hallway. A coal bin, boiler room, and janitor's room were in the basement, along with storage space. The only original flooring after 1990 renovations was in the vestibule, with white hexagonal ceramic tiles with a white and black tile border. The Historic American Engineering Record documented the building in 1990 before the renovations and addition of a handicapped-accessible exterior ramp.

The U.S. General Services Administration transferred ownership of the building to the Idaho Historical Society in 2006. The former Reclamation Services office building was leased to a private school named Riverstone International School; it later held staff from the Idaho History Museum. The structure was vacant and offered for lease in January 2020. The building has been leased by GEO Reentry Services Idaho, a group of occupational therapists who work with the Idaho Department of Corrections parolees in skills for a successful return to society. The non-residential program teaches work and behavioral coping skills.

Canaday, Tricia. Quivik, Frederic L. Hufstetler, Mark A. NRHP nomination of Reclamation Service Boise Project Office, Boise, Idaho. Edition revision of 1990. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2010.

GEO Reentry Services Idaho. Programs, GEO Reentry Services Idaho. January 1st, 2023. Accessed February 6th, 2023. https://www.reentryidaho.com/programs/.

Preservation Idaho. Bureau of Reclamation Building, Idaho Architecture Project. January 1st, 2023. Accessed February 6th, 2023. https://www.idahoarchitectureproject.org/properties/bureau-of-reclamation-building/.

Quivik, Fredrick L. Historic American Engineering Record documentation of Boise Project, Boise Project Office. HAER ID-17-C. Washington, DC. Department of the Interior, 1990.

TOK Commercial. Office Building for Lease: 214 Broadway, TOK Commercial - flyer. February 20th, 2020. Accessed February 6th, 2023. https://www.loopnet.com/common/viewer/?file=https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/hltk34uzKZ9rCTJAcZc0rJjTEwy8oft-kI_t_5MmXts/214broadwayflyer.pdf.