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Idaho City
Just an hour drive from Boise, along scenic Highway 21, is the classic western town of Idaho City, which for a period in the 1860’s, was
The largest city in the Northwest. It was in the Boise Basin, which surrounds present day Idaho City, that gold was first discovered in southern Idaho, and over the next twenty years or so, more than $250,000,000 worth of the precious metal was taken from the basin.
Boise County also accounted for much of the early logging activity in Southern Idaho. The wealth produced by mining and logging operations fueled the development of the area well into the twentieth century.
The mining towns of Idaho City, Placerville, Centerville, Atlanta, etc, supported a large timber market, but the mountainous terrain, and lack of railroads made lumber transportation outside of the mountains difficult.
Lumber companies soon realized that commercial lumbering couldn’t develop in the Boise forests without adequate rail transportation. The Barber Mill, located six miles north of Boise, played a huge role in the development of a lumber railroad.
Intermountain Railway and Barber Mill
Frank Steunenberg, former Idaho governor started a project at the turn of the century to bring Wisconsin and Minnesota lumbermen over to Boise forests. Steunenberg attracted the attention of Barber Lumber Company (Wisconsin) bought 25,000 acres north of Boise, along Grime’s and More’s creeks, in 1902. Construction on Barber Dam and Sawmill began in 1904 and was completed in 1905. But only a year later, in 1906, Barber realized they would need a railroad to transport logs.
The company had originally intended to transport the logs with log drives down More’s and Grime’s creeks, but they soon realized the creeks would not support log drives. Silt from earlier upstream mining threatened to fill and clog the log pond during high water, the only practical time to have a log drive.
Another obstacle for the Barber Lumber Company came when the company attempted to buy more forest acreage to supplement the land they already owned. The State Land Board wouldn’t sell the land for less than $150,000 per 12,000 acres (an outrageous price at the time).
A combination of issues contributed to Barber Mill shutting its doors in 1908, but the Barber Lumber Company didn’t give up. They kept pushing for the construction of the Intermountain Railway and a lower price on the land they wanted to purchase.
Four years later, in 1912, the Barber litigation was solved, and the United States Reclamation Service started construction on a rail line (a third of the way to Centerville from Boise). Around the same time, the State Land Board offered to sell Barber the timber they wanted for $100,000 (but not the land). Further arguments took the case to the Idaho Supreme Court, where the sale of timber AND land was upheld, as long as the Barber Company would build a rail line, enhancing the value of the other state lands. Barber Mill reopened in 1912.
In 1914, plans to construct the Intermountain Railway began and the Barber Lumber Company merged with the Payette Lumber and Manufacturing Company becoming the Boise Payette Lumber Co.
The Intermountain Railway was built from just north of Boise to New Centerville, following the Boise River, Grime’s Creek, and More’s Creek. The total cost of construction was $1,037,499, equal to $24,725,261 today. During construction of the rail line, four logging spurs (dirt roads) were built to assist lumber companies in log transportation.
With the completion of the Intermountain Railway, the Boise Payette Company saw a huge boost in profits and remained profitable throughout the 1920s. However, early in the 1930s, as the market became depressed, the company started taking huge losses, which led to the closing of Barber Mill in 1934, it was never reopened. The Intermountain Railway service was suspended in the 30s as well and later was replaced by Highway 21 (Boise to Idaho City).
