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William (Bill) J. Castagneto_1
JACI WILKENS: ...Castagneto, taken at his home on 212 South Power Line in Nampa on May 20th, 1985 by Jaci Wilkins. Mr. Castagneto, would you like to tell me about your birth and how your family happened to come to settle in the Nampa area?
BILL CASTAGNETO: [00:00:30] My family, my father, was with the Union Pacific Railroad in his younger years, and being at that time a traveling carpenter, was transferred to, from Pocatello to Nampa in about 1917, the latter part, and then, and they settled here. The next spring, in April, I was born [00:01:00] on April 17th, 1918, and continued as a resident of Nampa through my high school years and returning after the war. __ My recollections of living in Nampa came at approximately the age of six years of, when I was six years old. I old. I remember so vividly the transportation [00:01:30] system that went through our valley called the Old Interurban Railroad. I I used to play alongside of it and watch the trains, both the passenger trains and the freight trains come chugging down 3rd Street South from Caldwell to downtown Nampa and vice versa. We had lots of fun talking and waving to the [00:02:00] railroad personnel.
BILL: At the same time, just to the north of us, we were living on the, between the 3rd Street and 4th Street on 6th Avenue South, just to the north of us was the PFE ice plant, and at the railroad tracks close by was the, what was known then as the Hobo Junction, which was occupied by lots of hobos coming through the areas [00:02:30] riding the rails. Because we were so close to them, I remember very vividly that we had quite a large contingent of so-called hobos in town at all times, and for some reason they frequented our back door probably as much as anybody's in town, always knowing that there was a handout from my mother, and all of them at that time were somewhat willing to do a little work for what they got, [00:03:00] spading the garden or doing a little trimming or a little touch-up around the house. I remember these things very vividly because we were instructed, although they seemed to be nice people, to never go down to the Hobo Junction.
BILL: But we, like all kids, were filled with a lot of inquisitiveness. We would venture down there and down to the PFE ice plant primarily because that's where the Phyllis Canal was, and that was our [00:03:30] favorite swimming spot. We would go down there and go to their discard pile of cork slabs that they would take out of the PFE cars, and on these cork slabs we would use them kind of as a surfboard, and we would float down the Phyllis Canal for several miles, usually getting out at the old water wheel, which is down at the lower end of Lincoln Park or Lyon Park [00:04:00] at the present time. That was all rural country at that time. [Break]
JACI: Can you tell me what life in Nampa was like during the 20s?
BILL: For us at our age, the late 1920s were extremely interesting. Probably the first thing that I remember of [00:04:30] great import was Union Pacific's decision to build a big car repair plant, which was known as the Pacific Fruit Express plant. I remember in May of 1926 being a part of the huge parade which opened this plant, the plant becoming, as the rest of the railroad, the very lifeblood of our community for many years to come. This was a lot of fun for everybody, and [00:05:00] as I reflect back, it seemed to be the real start of the development and the expansion of Nampa, which continued for many years and even to the present time. About that same time, the Union Pacific, being the major employer of the area, was very individual, employee-oriented. I recall that they sponsored an athletic program of their own, which included not [00:05:30] only baseball but tennis and a number of other activities, including Nampa and as far away as Huntington and Pocatello. They would bring their teams in and we would go there.
BILL: And being a young person, I attended all of those with my father, who was active in them at the time. I think that this was the beginning of making Nampa more or less an athletic-oriented town. At the same time, when the PFE [00:06:00] opened, another big development started. This was amongst the employees at the PFE shop who, during their breaks and their noon hours, started playing with a great big oversized baseball. At that time, it was called kitten ball. Softball is the common phraseology now. They became extremely good and it was only a very short time that they expanded and [00:06:30] we created a team, a league here in Nampa.
BILL: Nampa became, over the years, the foremost softball town in the West. And if my memory serves correctly, we had, in the early 30s, we had the first lighted softball park west of the Mississippi River. My father was president of this organization in 1933 and 1934, which was about the heyday of softball, [00:07:00] where Nampa fielded usually about six or seven teams, extremely good teams, that traveled all over the country playing other teams, usually winning. And they were known as the softball center. There were a number of us growing up in our early high school years playing on these teams, having the privilege to play on the teams. This became one of the highlights of our lives.
JACI: [00:07:30] Are there any special people you remember or other special recollections of the 20s?
BILL: Probably the one that sticks most in my mind, although I was very small, was a beautiful young lady, about 19 years of age, whose name was Irene Aguer. Irene was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, although I was probably only about eight or nine at the time. In 1927, she was my babysitter. [00:08:00] And while so doing, although it had no effect on her, she entered the Miss Nampa contest and won it, progressing to one of the first Idaho, Miss Idaho contests, and she became Miss Idaho. Probably my first recollection of any individual person, especially a beautiful lady, who became very prominently known and associated with Nampa.
JACI: [00:08:30] What are some of the landmarks in Nampa that you remember growing up, and how did they affect your life at that time?
BILL: When I was growing up, Nampa, of course, was not very large. Sixth Avenue South was starting to get quite a ways west. On Fifth Avenue was the beginning of the high school property, and once you got past the high school property, there were comparatively few places, including [00:09:00] most of the places were places such as the Japanese Gardens, which were just west of where Davis Avenue takes off. And to go out to the PFE was kind of wide open space, as was also the space to the north and west of the high school. But we who lived in the west end had a pretty good life, we felt. We had lots of places to go and a lot of old-time homes [00:09:30] to play around, lots around, lots of trees to play in, high school property to play around on the lawn, to play the games that we wanted.
BILL: Perhaps one of the most interesting places when we were growing up was a place called the Moonbeam Hall, which was at the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and First Street. In this hall, being a wide open [00:10:00] place inside, were held all kinds of activities, from roller skating, which was the main activity, to dances, to church meetings, and most anything else that required a large open space. Practically any night of the week, and especially on Saturday nights, you could meet most of your friends at the skating rink. It seemed to be a gathering place. Out in the west end of Nampa were a lot of other [00:10:30] interesting places, a lot of nice places, a lot of nice homes from 2nd Avenue eastward. But one of my best recollections was the old Harris Grocery Store on the corner of, the southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street. There you could buy just about anything that you wanted, and most things were in bulk. If you wanted dates, you went in and you took a pick, and you picked [00:11:00] off how many dates off of the big block that you wanted. If you wanted a dill pickle, you went to the big barrel and you got the dill pickle. If you wanted the candies, including all of the licorice ropes, this type of thing, you went to the big candy counter and helped yourself.
BILL: With the friendliness of all of these people toward the young people of the area, we had a very happy childhood in growing up where we did. [00:11:30] Across the street from the Moonbeam Hall on the northeast corner of 9th Avenue and 1st Street was a very famous place, especially to me. It was called the Jensma Creamery. In the Jensma Creamery was where some of the finest people ever knew, including Mr. Jensma, who let me have the run of the creamery for several years. I used to go out and help Mr. Pennish make ice cream. He was the ice cream maker, [00:12:00] and obviously we had to sample the product quite frequently. When popsicles first came onto the market, I had the opportunity of making the popsicles for them by being the person who put the stick down in the container. The cold room was open to me, and I think I ate my share and probably a few dozen other persons' share of Eskimo pies and all of the other [00:12:30] delectable things that were contained therein.
BILL: Next to it was what we called the old Equity Building. Nampa was a processing center for a number of things, including a big processing plant for turkeys and for other fowls. But the Equity was a big processing plant for fresh vegetables, especially lettuce, which was grown in abundance at that time. It [00:13:00] was interesting to go down and watch the lettuce being processed and loaded into the PFE cars, which were soon on their way to eastern markets. In those days they didn't have refrigeration units, so they had to ice all of the refrigeration cars with huge blocks of ice in each end. This is why the Union Pacific established the Union Pacific Ice Plant with its big long chutes that could [00:13:30] ice four complete freight trains at one time. This was a big industry in Nampa at that time. It's been long since dismantled and is now a potato processing plant.
BILL: In the same area was another landmark of Nampa, also long gone and now occupied by scrap metal business. This was the Overland Brewery, [00:14:00] which was just across the railroad tracks on the western side of the street from the Jensma Creamery and the Equity Building on 9th Avenue South. Here they made Overland beer, which was shipped all over the country. I understand that factory now and all the equipment is now in South America. But even as youngsters, though we didn't buy, it it was a lot of fun to go over there and watch them make [00:14:30] the product that they had.
BILL: It was also fun to go to another creamery, which the building is still standing. It's the Nampa Creamery on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 2nd Street. Here was where the town got most of their ice that went into our icebox to keep our food from spoiling. [00:15:00] It was so much fun to go down and watch. Sometimes, as it was only three blocks from my home, I'd get to help make these 300-pound blocks of ice and to bring them out and take them out of their metal containers and store them and then pack usually a 50-pound block home to put in your icebox.
BILL: About this same time, we were getting old enough that we could travel around a bit. [00:15:30] Probably one of the most interesting things that I remember occurring outside of the city limits was south of town where a lot of very fine farms. But when you got far enough out into the Scism area, you came to a place that was out in the desert called Dry Lake. Dry Lake was a place where it was not much good for anything except in the summertime it was very flat and they would take their cars out and race around [00:16:00] on the dry bed. In the wintertime, this is where we went ice skating. We would go out and several inches of water would accumulate in the bottom and made a very smooth several acres of ice skating surface.
BILL: But the thing that I remember the most here was how much fun the American Legion people, who always seemed to be jokers, had with visiting tourists. [00:16:30] They would take them out in their old open touring cars and in the early spring there would be usually a little water in here. And they would rush them across these tracks, across the desert for about a mile from the nearest road, come up over a little rise and then plunge pell-mell into the bed of Dry Lake with the passengers who, not knowingly, were thinking of only dire results. [00:17:00] They would dash down and right into the lake with the women screaming, wondering, how deep are we going to go? Well, of course, the driver knew that there was only two or three inches of water there, but it was always a must for tourists to get their tour out to Dry Lake.
BILL: Lake Lowell, being a little closer to town, has a very healthy influence on all of the history of Nampa because of its close proximity and [00:17:30] all the things that you could do there. Lots of good things happened there. It was where we went for our hikes when we were in Boy Scouts, at our overnight camps where we did our fishing in the wintertime where we did a lot of ice skating. It also was a sign of a number of disasters with loss of life and people lost in swimming in the summertime and several people lost by going out onto the [00:18:00] ice, which had various thicknesses according to the harshness of the winter, and plunging through the ice and drowning.
JACI: Can you tell me about the agriculture and the farming in the area during the 20s and during the 20s and some of the things you remember about that?
BILL: Nampa has always been an agrarian-based city or community. The [00:18:30] The farms in what is called the Treasure Valley have always been extremely productive. We have, as far back as I can remember, had a very large dairy industry here. The focus of the dairy product was this ultimate destination, the Carnation Condensary. This building, which is now currently [00:19:00] the Carnation Can Company plant, was originally built as a big sugar beet processing plant, and behind it, up near where Pacific Press is now located, is the old sugar beet pond, which furnished and impounded the water to be used in the Carnation plant. This also used to be one of our favorite ice skating ponds [00:19:30] in the wintertime when the pond froze the wintertime when the pond froze over. The Carnation Condensary produced primarily condensed milk and brick cheese.
BILL: I recall my youth, I used to go on collections routes on Roscoe Bradley's routes, he being our neighbor and his son one of my best friends. They collected milk from [00:20:00] what was then the city limits of Nampa, which started just north of Roosevelt and went south to just south of what is now Melba. We'd stop and pick up the milk and haul it back in to the condensary where it was processed, in the meantime taking butter and cheese back out to the farmers from the condensary. At the time that it was at its heyday, it was the second largest condensary in the world, [00:20:30] and most all of its products were shipped, as I recall, to the Philippines and to the Orient. Condensed milk at that time being of course the only product that could be safely shipped that distance. The agricultural community, being an agricultural community, Nampa depended upon the variety of agricultural products that were produced in the area. [00:21:00] It was at that time that they began to grow more exotic type of crops, which now we lead the nation in, such as seed crops, rather than the old staples of wheat and barley and corn and other staple crops. I don't believe Nampa would ever have gone, or the whole of Canyon County would have ever developed very far had it not been for the extremely [00:21:30] fertile land that we have here in the Treasure Valley and the abundant access to water with which to irrigate them.
JACI: Can you tell me what it was like to go to town on Saturdays in the 20s and whether or not Nampa was part of the roaring 20s?
BILL: It was fun to go to town, whether it was in the 20s or in the 30s. Everyone looked forward to the biggest activity of [00:22:00] the week, and week, and that was to go downtown on Saturday night. And it was a contest of who could get there first to get the best parking places on First Street South from in front of the Dewey Palace Hotel down to between Hotel down to between 13th and 14th and on 12th Avenue South. Once you got there, sometime during the night, anybody that you might want to see will come by. It [00:22:30] was a very downtown-oriented community, and there was lots and lots to do. We had good theaters. At one there was lots and lots to do. We had good theaters. At one time we had three. They finally developed into two. The Old Liberty, which was located down in the vacant parking lot where that beautiful picture of the Dewey Palace Hotel has been painted on the Salvation Army Wall. It later became the Adelaide Theater, and next to it was a very has been painted on the Salvation Army Wall. It later became the Adelaide Theater, and next to it was a very famous spot, and that was Oscar's Liberty Sweet Shop. [00:23:00] On the west end of town, just across the alley from the present fire department, was our biggest theater, the Majestic, which gained some renown in the fact that in the early 30s, Herman Brown, the owner, closed the theater and had it totally renovated into one of the most modern and most beautiful theaters inside that you would see anywhere. And [00:23:30] it continued to be a good theater until, unfortunately, even though next to the fire station it burned down.
BILL: We had a lot of activity downtown, not only on Saturday nights, but on most any other night. But a curious thing, as I talk to people over the years who look at Nampa now and see its downtown now and see its downtown area as a rather flat area, [00:24:00] when we were growing up, Nampa was not flat downtown. It was flat only in a few blocks, but the block in which the Old City Hall, First Interstate Bank, the police station, and Idaho Power Company are now located, most of that block was about six to eight feet higher than the road. Also, across the street on the east side of [00:24:30] 12th Avenue, where the theater is now, it also set up on a promontory about six to eight feet, and you would have to go up wooden steps to reach some of the old wooden buildings that were up there.
BILL: Where the Idaho Power Company is at the present time was the Interurban Depot, a very interesting place because as the tracks came east on 3rd Street South, they turned north at the [00:25:00] corner of 11th Avenue around Lindsey's Ford Garage, went up and turned in to what is now the parking lot for the Idaho Power, and then went right through the middle of the building, came out the other side and went back to 11th Avenue where it was able to continue on across the tracks and and on to Meridian and Boise. This was the Passenger Depot and the [00:25:30] Freight Depot, a very interesting place, and the only place on that block that was down low on the street level. Next to it was Finley's Sign Shop, which set up on the promontory, and on the corner where the first Interstate Bank is now was a beautiful little white church that set up there on top of the hill, and you could see it as you came down 3rd Street.
BILL: Across the street, catty-corner [00:26:00] from it, was Fred Robinson's Funeral Parlor, which is now Alsip's at their present location, which was moved many years ago. Where the Brethren Church now stands in in the old Idaho Free Press building was the homestead of a very fine old gentleman who used to have a prune orchard covering all the rest of that half [00:26:30] a block, and he would harvest the prunes and put them out to sun dry and, of course, treat all of us who came by who treated him well. It was a favorite spot, to say the least. To the east, where the Masonic Temple is, was a vacant lot to the north, and across, where the city is now tearing down the old Robowash, was a nice little [00:27:00] church and another hall that was used by the congregation of the church and much of the community for community activities. And then, where the bus depot is to the corner was where several of the older families of Nampa, including the Deweys and so forth, had their homes.
BILL: Now, downtown Nampa was not extensive at the time, but it was most interesting. Probably one of the most interesting things is is where Firestone [00:27:30] Store now stands used to be a downtown sales yard. This is where everybody brought their cows and their pigs and their everything else to sell, and that was done right downtown with Shaw Sheet Metalworks being right next door to it. We had lots to do, lots of things that were interesting to us as we grew up in Nampa. I don't think we ever could [00:28:00] go back to the old saying, we didn't have anything to do. There was so much to do, and we made so much to do, that I don't ever remember a lull time in our childhood as we did grow up.
BILL: And of course, everybody remembers the Harvest Festival and Rodeo, which always came in the first part of September. It was the climax to everybody's year in Nampa, a thing that [00:28:30] universally is desired by everyone that I know and ever talked to, to have it come back. It was the fun time of the year, went on for days and days. First Street South from the majestic theater on to about where Nafziger's are located now was filled with all kinds of games, things to play, [00:29:00] where you do bingo and all of this type of thing, and spinning wheels and places to eat. And up and down 12th Avenue were all of the beautiful displays by all the granges and all the farm organizations of their produce for the year. The auto dealers would have auto shows, or the autos at that time. And every year coming back, the same company, a a very fine company with clean type [00:29:30] of concessions, would come in with their Ferris wheels, their merry go-rounds, their crack the whips and all of the other kind of things, and they would be set up on 13th Avenue on both sides of First Street on 13th Avenue. I had a lot of fun here because my little old grandfather, who was pretty much blind but well-known, operated a little popcorn stand and and concession [00:30:00] stand downtown for a while. It was always located next to where the Ferris wheel was.
BILL: So I was there and got all the rides when they needed somebody to go up who was a much younger person than I, who needed some kind of protection and accompaniment. This continued to grow until we had to have two sets of Ferris wheels and two sets of merry go-rounds, one and whips, one down by the Majestic and one up on 13th [00:30:30] because the demand was so great. But it was a great time for everyone and what we looked forward to for the year. Now the rodeo, which is called the rodeo and the Harvest Festival was called the Fair and Rodeo Without a Fence, and they didn't have a fence, but they had the old rodeo park in the present location of the rodeo grounds. It was much expanded and [00:31:00] followed the pattern of many of the old rodeos in that they had a lot of exhibition type of events, more so than they do now. There were the chuck wagon races and there were the Indians who came in with their horses and their travois and their other things and and set up their teepees out in the area close to the railroad track. It was kind of a great spectacle, but even in those days it was known as one [00:31:30] of the most prominent rodeos in the nation. Later, because of other circumstances, it grew to what we know at the present day, which is another interesting story.
END OF RECORDING
JACI WILKENS: ...Castagneto, taken at his home on 212 South Power Line in Nampa on May 20th, 1985 by Jaci Wilkins. Mr. Castagneto, would you like to tell me about your birth and how your family happened to come to settle in the Nampa area?
BILL CASTAGNETO: [00:00:30] My family, my father, was with the Union Pacific Railroad in his younger years, and being at that time a traveling carpenter, was transferred to, from Pocatello to Nampa in about 1917, the latter part, and then, and they settled here. The next spring, in April, I was born [00:01:00] on April 17th, 1918, and continued as a resident of Nampa through my high school years and returning after the war. __ My recollections of living in Nampa came at approximately the age of six years of, when I was six years old. I old. I remember so vividly the transportation [00:01:30] system that went through our valley called the Old Interurban Railroad. I I used to play alongside of it and watch the trains, both the passenger trains and the freight trains come chugging down 3rd Street South from Caldwell to downtown Nampa and vice versa. We had lots of fun talking and waving to the [00:02:00] railroad personnel.
BILL: At the same time, just to the north of us, we were living on the, between the 3rd Street and 4th Street on 6th Avenue South, just to the north of us was the PFE ice plant, and at the railroad tracks close by was the, what was known then as the Hobo Junction, which was occupied by lots of hobos coming through the areas [00:02:30] riding the rails. Because we were so close to them, I remember very vividly that we had quite a large contingent of so-called hobos in town at all times, and for some reason they frequented our back door probably as much as anybody's in town, always knowing that there was a handout from my mother, and all of them at that time were somewhat willing to do a little work for what they got, [00:03:00] spading the garden or doing a little trimming or a little touch-up around the house. I remember these things very vividly because we were instructed, although they seemed to be nice people, to never go down to the Hobo Junction.
BILL: But we, like all kids, were filled with a lot of inquisitiveness. We would venture down there and down to the PFE ice plant primarily because that's where the Phyllis Canal was, and that was our [00:03:30] favorite swimming spot. We would go down there and go to their discard pile of cork slabs that they would take out of the PFE cars, and on these cork slabs we would use them kind of as a surfboard, and we would float down the Phyllis Canal for several miles, usually getting out at the old water wheel, which is down at the lower end of Lincoln Park or Lyon Park [00:04:00] at the present time. That was all rural country at that time. [Break]
JACI: Can you tell me what life in Nampa was like during the 20s?
BILL: For us at our age, the late 1920s were extremely interesting. Probably the first thing that I remember of [00:04:30] great import was Union Pacific's decision to build a big car repair plant, which was known as the Pacific Fruit Express plant. I remember in May of 1926 being a part of the huge parade which opened this plant, the plant becoming, as the rest of the railroad, the very lifeblood of our community for many years to come. This was a lot of fun for everybody, and [00:05:00] as I reflect back, it seemed to be the real start of the development and the expansion of Nampa, which continued for many years and even to the present time. About that same time, the Union Pacific, being the major employer of the area, was very individual, employee-oriented. I recall that they sponsored an athletic program of their own, which included not [00:05:30] only baseball but tennis and a number of other activities, including Nampa and as far away as Huntington and Pocatello. They would bring their teams in and we would go there.
BILL: And being a young person, I attended all of those with my father, who was active in them at the time. I think that this was the beginning of making Nampa more or less an athletic-oriented town. At the same time, when the PFE [00:06:00] opened, another big development started. This was amongst the employees at the PFE shop who, during their breaks and their noon hours, started playing with a great big oversized baseball. At that time, it was called kitten ball. Softball is the common phraseology now. They became extremely good and it was only a very short time that they expanded and [00:06:30] we created a team, a league here in Nampa.
BILL: Nampa became, over the years, the foremost softball town in the West. And if my memory serves correctly, we had, in the early 30s, we had the first lighted softball park west of the Mississippi River. My father was president of this organization in 1933 and 1934, which was about the heyday of softball, [00:07:00] where Nampa fielded usually about six or seven teams, extremely good teams, that traveled all over the country playing other teams, usually winning. And they were known as the softball center. There were a number of us growing up in our early high school years playing on these teams, having the privilege to play on the teams. This became one of the highlights of our lives.
JACI: [00:07:30] Are there any special people you remember or other special recollections of the 20s?
BILL: Probably the one that sticks most in my mind, although I was very small, was a beautiful young lady, about 19 years of age, whose name was Irene Aguer. Irene was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, although I was probably only about eight or nine at the time. In 1927, she was my babysitter. [00:08:00] And while so doing, although it had no effect on her, she entered the Miss Nampa contest and won it, progressing to one of the first Idaho, Miss Idaho contests, and she became Miss Idaho. Probably my first recollection of any individual person, especially a beautiful lady, who became very prominently known and associated with Nampa.
JACI: [00:08:30] What are some of the landmarks in Nampa that you remember growing up, and how did they affect your life at that time?
BILL: When I was growing up, Nampa, of course, was not very large. Sixth Avenue South was starting to get quite a ways west. On Fifth Avenue was the beginning of the high school property, and once you got past the high school property, there were comparatively few places, including [00:09:00] most of the places were places such as the Japanese Gardens, which were just west of where Davis Avenue takes off. And to go out to the PFE was kind of wide open space, as was also the space to the north and west of the high school. But we who lived in the west end had a pretty good life, we felt. We had lots of places to go and a lot of old-time homes [00:09:30] to play around, lots around, lots of trees to play in, high school property to play around on the lawn, to play the games that we wanted.
BILL: Perhaps one of the most interesting places when we were growing up was a place called the Moonbeam Hall, which was at the northwest corner of Ninth Avenue and First Street. In this hall, being a wide open [00:10:00] place inside, were held all kinds of activities, from roller skating, which was the main activity, to dances, to church meetings, and most anything else that required a large open space. Practically any night of the week, and especially on Saturday nights, you could meet most of your friends at the skating rink. It seemed to be a gathering place. Out in the west end of Nampa were a lot of other [00:10:30] interesting places, a lot of nice places, a lot of nice homes from 2nd Avenue eastward. But one of my best recollections was the old Harris Grocery Store on the corner of, the southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street. There you could buy just about anything that you wanted, and most things were in bulk. If you wanted dates, you went in and you took a pick, and you picked [00:11:00] off how many dates off of the big block that you wanted. If you wanted a dill pickle, you went to the big barrel and you got the dill pickle. If you wanted the candies, including all of the licorice ropes, this type of thing, you went to the big candy counter and helped yourself.
BILL: With the friendliness of all of these people toward the young people of the area, we had a very happy childhood in growing up where we did. [00:11:30] Across the street from the Moonbeam Hall on the northeast corner of 9th Avenue and 1st Street was a very famous place, especially to me. It was called the Jensma Creamery. In the Jensma Creamery was where some of the finest people ever knew, including Mr. Jensma, who let me have the run of the creamery for several years. I used to go out and help Mr. Pennish make ice cream. He was the ice cream maker, [00:12:00] and obviously we had to sample the product quite frequently. When popsicles first came onto the market, I had the opportunity of making the popsicles for them by being the person who put the stick down in the container. The cold room was open to me, and I think I ate my share and probably a few dozen other persons' share of Eskimo pies and all of the other [00:12:30] delectable things that were contained therein.
BILL: Next to it was what we called the old Equity Building. Nampa was a processing center for a number of things, including a big processing plant for turkeys and for other fowls. But the Equity was a big processing plant for fresh vegetables, especially lettuce, which was grown in abundance at that time. It [00:13:00] was interesting to go down and watch the lettuce being processed and loaded into the PFE cars, which were soon on their way to eastern markets. In those days they didn't have refrigeration units, so they had to ice all of the refrigeration cars with huge blocks of ice in each end. This is why the Union Pacific established the Union Pacific Ice Plant with its big long chutes that could [00:13:30] ice four complete freight trains at one time. This was a big industry in Nampa at that time. It's been long since dismantled and is now a potato processing plant.
BILL: In the same area was another landmark of Nampa, also long gone and now occupied by scrap metal business. This was the Overland Brewery, [00:14:00] which was just across the railroad tracks on the western side of the street from the Jensma Creamery and the Equity Building on 9th Avenue South. Here they made Overland beer, which was shipped all over the country. I understand that factory now and all the equipment is now in South America. But even as youngsters, though we didn't buy, it it was a lot of fun to go over there and watch them make [00:14:30] the product that they had.
BILL: It was also fun to go to another creamery, which the building is still standing. It's the Nampa Creamery on the northwest corner of 7th Avenue and 2nd Street. Here was where the town got most of their ice that went into our icebox to keep our food from spoiling. [00:15:00] It was so much fun to go down and watch. Sometimes, as it was only three blocks from my home, I'd get to help make these 300-pound blocks of ice and to bring them out and take them out of their metal containers and store them and then pack usually a 50-pound block home to put in your icebox.
BILL: About this same time, we were getting old enough that we could travel around a bit. [00:15:30] Probably one of the most interesting things that I remember occurring outside of the city limits was south of town where a lot of very fine farms. But when you got far enough out into the Scism area, you came to a place that was out in the desert called Dry Lake. Dry Lake was a place where it was not much good for anything except in the summertime it was very flat and they would take their cars out and race around [00:16:00] on the dry bed. In the wintertime, this is where we went ice skating. We would go out and several inches of water would accumulate in the bottom and made a very smooth several acres of ice skating surface.
BILL: But the thing that I remember the most here was how much fun the American Legion people, who always seemed to be jokers, had with visiting tourists. [00:16:30] They would take them out in their old open touring cars and in the early spring there would be usually a little water in here. And they would rush them across these tracks, across the desert for about a mile from the nearest road, come up over a little rise and then plunge pell-mell into the bed of Dry Lake with the passengers who, not knowingly, were thinking of only dire results. [00:17:00] They would dash down and right into the lake with the women screaming, wondering, how deep are we going to go? Well, of course, the driver knew that there was only two or three inches of water there, but it was always a must for tourists to get their tour out to Dry Lake.
BILL: Lake Lowell, being a little closer to town, has a very healthy influence on all of the history of Nampa because of its close proximity and [00:17:30] all the things that you could do there. Lots of good things happened there. It was where we went for our hikes when we were in Boy Scouts, at our overnight camps where we did our fishing in the wintertime where we did a lot of ice skating. It also was a sign of a number of disasters with loss of life and people lost in swimming in the summertime and several people lost by going out onto the [00:18:00] ice, which had various thicknesses according to the harshness of the winter, and plunging through the ice and drowning.
JACI: Can you tell me about the agriculture and the farming in the area during the 20s and during the 20s and some of the things you remember about that?
BILL: Nampa has always been an agrarian-based city or community. The [00:18:30] The farms in what is called the Treasure Valley have always been extremely productive. We have, as far back as I can remember, had a very large dairy industry here. The focus of the dairy product was this ultimate destination, the Carnation Condensary. This building, which is now currently [00:19:00] the Carnation Can Company plant, was originally built as a big sugar beet processing plant, and behind it, up near where Pacific Press is now located, is the old sugar beet pond, which furnished and impounded the water to be used in the Carnation plant. This also used to be one of our favorite ice skating ponds [00:19:30] in the wintertime when the pond froze the wintertime when the pond froze over. The Carnation Condensary produced primarily condensed milk and brick cheese.
BILL: I recall my youth, I used to go on collections routes on Roscoe Bradley's routes, he being our neighbor and his son one of my best friends. They collected milk from [00:20:00] what was then the city limits of Nampa, which started just north of Roosevelt and went south to just south of what is now Melba. We'd stop and pick up the milk and haul it back in to the condensary where it was processed, in the meantime taking butter and cheese back out to the farmers from the condensary. At the time that it was at its heyday, it was the second largest condensary in the world, [00:20:30] and most all of its products were shipped, as I recall, to the Philippines and to the Orient. Condensed milk at that time being of course the only product that could be safely shipped that distance. The agricultural community, being an agricultural community, Nampa depended upon the variety of agricultural products that were produced in the area. [00:21:00] It was at that time that they began to grow more exotic type of crops, which now we lead the nation in, such as seed crops, rather than the old staples of wheat and barley and corn and other staple crops. I don't believe Nampa would ever have gone, or the whole of Canyon County would have ever developed very far had it not been for the extremely [00:21:30] fertile land that we have here in the Treasure Valley and the abundant access to water with which to irrigate them.
JACI: Can you tell me what it was like to go to town on Saturdays in the 20s and whether or not Nampa was part of the roaring 20s?
BILL: It was fun to go to town, whether it was in the 20s or in the 30s. Everyone looked forward to the biggest activity of [00:22:00] the week, and week, and that was to go downtown on Saturday night. And it was a contest of who could get there first to get the best parking places on First Street South from in front of the Dewey Palace Hotel down to between Hotel down to between 13th and 14th and on 12th Avenue South. Once you got there, sometime during the night, anybody that you might want to see will come by. It [00:22:30] was a very downtown-oriented community, and there was lots and lots to do. We had good theaters. At one there was lots and lots to do. We had good theaters. At one time we had three. They finally developed into two. The Old Liberty, which was located down in the vacant parking lot where that beautiful picture of the Dewey Palace Hotel has been painted on the Salvation Army Wall. It later became the Adelaide Theater, and next to it was a very has been painted on the Salvation Army Wall. It later became the Adelaide Theater, and next to it was a very famous spot, and that was Oscar's Liberty Sweet Shop. [00:23:00] On the west end of town, just across the alley from the present fire department, was our biggest theater, the Majestic, which gained some renown in the fact that in the early 30s, Herman Brown, the owner, closed the theater and had it totally renovated into one of the most modern and most beautiful theaters inside that you would see anywhere. And [00:23:30] it continued to be a good theater until, unfortunately, even though next to the fire station it burned down.
BILL: We had a lot of activity downtown, not only on Saturday nights, but on most any other night. But a curious thing, as I talk to people over the years who look at Nampa now and see its downtown now and see its downtown area as a rather flat area, [00:24:00] when we were growing up, Nampa was not flat downtown. It was flat only in a few blocks, but the block in which the Old City Hall, First Interstate Bank, the police station, and Idaho Power Company are now located, most of that block was about six to eight feet higher than the road. Also, across the street on the east side of [00:24:30] 12th Avenue, where the theater is now, it also set up on a promontory about six to eight feet, and you would have to go up wooden steps to reach some of the old wooden buildings that were up there.
BILL: Where the Idaho Power Company is at the present time was the Interurban Depot, a very interesting place because as the tracks came east on 3rd Street South, they turned north at the [00:25:00] corner of 11th Avenue around Lindsey's Ford Garage, went up and turned in to what is now the parking lot for the Idaho Power, and then went right through the middle of the building, came out the other side and went back to 11th Avenue where it was able to continue on across the tracks and and on to Meridian and Boise. This was the Passenger Depot and the [00:25:30] Freight Depot, a very interesting place, and the only place on that block that was down low on the street level. Next to it was Finley's Sign Shop, which set up on the promontory, and on the corner where the first Interstate Bank is now was a beautiful little white church that set up there on top of the hill, and you could see it as you came down 3rd Street.
BILL: Across the street, catty-corner [00:26:00] from it, was Fred Robinson's Funeral Parlor, which is now Alsip's at their present location, which was moved many years ago. Where the Brethren Church now stands in in the old Idaho Free Press building was the homestead of a very fine old gentleman who used to have a prune orchard covering all the rest of that half [00:26:30] a block, and he would harvest the prunes and put them out to sun dry and, of course, treat all of us who came by who treated him well. It was a favorite spot, to say the least. To the east, where the Masonic Temple is, was a vacant lot to the north, and across, where the city is now tearing down the old Robowash, was a nice little [00:27:00] church and another hall that was used by the congregation of the church and much of the community for community activities. And then, where the bus depot is to the corner was where several of the older families of Nampa, including the Deweys and so forth, had their homes.
BILL: Now, downtown Nampa was not extensive at the time, but it was most interesting. Probably one of the most interesting things is is where Firestone [00:27:30] Store now stands used to be a downtown sales yard. This is where everybody brought their cows and their pigs and their everything else to sell, and that was done right downtown with Shaw Sheet Metalworks being right next door to it. We had lots to do, lots of things that were interesting to us as we grew up in Nampa. I don't think we ever could [00:28:00] go back to the old saying, we didn't have anything to do. There was so much to do, and we made so much to do, that I don't ever remember a lull time in our childhood as we did grow up.
BILL: And of course, everybody remembers the Harvest Festival and Rodeo, which always came in the first part of September. It was the climax to everybody's year in Nampa, a thing that [00:28:30] universally is desired by everyone that I know and ever talked to, to have it come back. It was the fun time of the year, went on for days and days. First Street South from the majestic theater on to about where Nafziger's are located now was filled with all kinds of games, things to play, [00:29:00] where you do bingo and all of this type of thing, and spinning wheels and places to eat. And up and down 12th Avenue were all of the beautiful displays by all the granges and all the farm organizations of their produce for the year. The auto dealers would have auto shows, or the autos at that time. And every year coming back, the same company, a a very fine company with clean type [00:29:30] of concessions, would come in with their Ferris wheels, their merry go-rounds, their crack the whips and all of the other kind of things, and they would be set up on 13th Avenue on both sides of First Street on 13th Avenue. I had a lot of fun here because my little old grandfather, who was pretty much blind but well-known, operated a little popcorn stand and and concession [00:30:00] stand downtown for a while. It was always located next to where the Ferris wheel was.
BILL: So I was there and got all the rides when they needed somebody to go up who was a much younger person than I, who needed some kind of protection and accompaniment. This continued to grow until we had to have two sets of Ferris wheels and two sets of merry go-rounds, one and whips, one down by the Majestic and one up on 13th [00:30:30] because the demand was so great. But it was a great time for everyone and what we looked forward to for the year. Now the rodeo, which is called the rodeo and the Harvest Festival was called the Fair and Rodeo Without a Fence, and they didn't have a fence, but they had the old rodeo park in the present location of the rodeo grounds. It was much expanded and [00:31:00] followed the pattern of many of the old rodeos in that they had a lot of exhibition type of events, more so than they do now. There were the chuck wagon races and there were the Indians who came in with their horses and their travois and their other things and and set up their teepees out in the area close to the railroad track. It was kind of a great spectacle, but even in those days it was known as one [00:31:30] of the most prominent rodeos in the nation. Later, because of other circumstances, it grew to what we know at the present day, which is another interesting story.
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