IDAHO CITY Historic Town — Idaho City, Idaho Status: Historic site · Access: Open to public Dossier: https://haunthunt.com/place/idaho-city-idaho-city-idaho/ The Boise Basin’s 1862 gold capital—7,000 people in 18 months, then the fires. A historic town in Idaho City, Idaho, Idaho City is filed here for what the record attaches to it. The Boise Basin’s 1862 gold capital—7,000 people in 18 months, then the fires. The archive files it under historic towns, ghost towns and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact, with the verified spine filed separately from the lore. The site is open to visitors. Idaho City was bigger than Portland — briefly, in 1863, the Boise Basin camp at the confluence of Elk and Mores creeks held over 6,000 people and made it the largest city in the Pacific Northwest. George Grimes's party found the gold on August 2, 1862 (Grimes was killed on the expedition; the creek kept his name), and by December the rush was on — a week's prospecting yielded $2,000, and the basin drew sixteen thousand miners. The town was first called Bannock; it changed to Idaho City to stop being confused with Bannack, Montana. The town burned and rebuilt twice — the 1865 fire leveled the wooden city, and on May 18, 1867, two years to the day, it burned again. What survived tells the story: the Masonic Hall and the I.O.O.F. hall, both wooden, spared both times. The rebuild went to brick — 'fire proof bricks' advertised in the Idaho World, clay dug across Elk Creek. The 1873 Kingsley store — built by the Methodist minister said to have instigated the town's vigilante movement — is now the Boise County Courthouse. The basin's gold built a territory — Boise Basin produced more than Florence, sustained the rush through 1864, and made Idaho worth organizing. The town that remains is the fire survivors: the brick blocks of 1865-73, the courthouse that was a merchant's store, and the boardwalks over the creeks that paid for it all. Idaho City is the archive's basin file — the 1862 Boise Basin boomtown that briefly outpopulated Portland, burned twice and rebuilt in brick, and kept its Masonic hall through both fires. WHY THIS FILE MATTERS Idaho City is the archive's twice-burned file — the Boise Basin camp that passed Portland in 1863, lost its wooden city to fires two years apart, and rebuilt in the brick blocks that still stand. A town that burned twice keeps its bricks — the file's suggestion being that Idaho City's hold is the rebuild: the fire-proof bricks of 1865-73 over the creeks that briefly made it the biggest city in the Northwest. FILED CLAIMS — 1 on record, reported not verified · [Local folklore] apparition: Locals and visitors report figures on the boardwalk and a presence in the old jail. The reports at Idaho City are the site's second history — unofficial, unverified, and stubbornly retold. The claim is neighborhood knowledge — retold locally, verified nowhere. Sources including 'Idaho City, Idaho' keep the claim in circulation. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped. source: Idaho City, Idaho (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_City,_Idaho) HISTORY — 1 documented facts · [1862] The 1862 boom made it the Northwest’s largest city briefly; fires and decline followed. A documented history gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that spine. This belongs to the verified spine of the entry, the layer everything else is measured against. 'Idaho City, Idaho' documents the entry. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry. SOURCES — 1 cited · Idaho City, Idaho — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_City,_Idaho — HauntHunt is a research archive. Claims are filed as reported — documented where sources exist, marked as folklore or unverified where they do not. Methodology: https://haunthunt.com/methodology/ · Corrections: https://haunthunt.com/report/