File #58: "Leonard Bowles_1"

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Leonard Bowles_1

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Leonard Bowles_1

RAY: Leonard Bowles made right made by Ray Larsen for the oral history for the Nampa Centennial made on May 22nd 1985. [Break]

RAY: [00:00:30] Well Leonard we understand you came to Nampa in about the mid-20s with your family and tell us what what brought your family and what was Nampa like at that time?

LEONARD: Well Well we come in here in 1926 and the reason that we came came from Emmett over here and the reason was my father got a job as the farm boss or supervisor at [00:01:00] the state school that time the state school was quite self-sustaining they had the farm they had big dairy they had they raised pigs, they had gardens, they canned they done everything and so his particular job was to supervise the farming end of it that's the reason we come into Nampa.

LEONARD: As far as what Nampa was like at that time [00:01:30] of course it was it wasn't the Nampa that we know today it was much smaller and if I recall right the first census I remember for Nampa was between eight and nine thousand people of course now we're up over 25,000 and it was a farming community at that time as it more or less is now and the big [00:02:00] business of course or was the railroad and PFE shops was going at that time, In fact they just had opened the PFE shops and that was the two big industries as far as Nampa was concerned. I can remember the farming district around town you didn't have to go very [00:02:30] many blocks from the main part of town until until you were actually you know in the in the farming community. 12th Avenue, the Kenwood school of course was there and the Kenwood school up 12th Avenue road like I can remember when they were oh one or two houses in each block or in other words there were a lot of empty lots that were built on [00:03:00] later on and when you got out to 12th Avenue where 12th Avenue goes on 12th Avenue road that was all farm. You went from Nampa to Caldwell and there was farms all the way from oh approximately I'd say 1st Avenue or right in there [00:03:30] where Consumers Grocery is from there on out there wasn't the building that we buildings or the business that we know today by any means it was farms and it was about that way going north way you as you cross the tracks on 11th Avenue of course you were in farming country. And as a matter of fact they farmed even this side of the tracks some of the ground [00:04:00] in there. I believe that probably from the main part of town you would go a mile in any direction you would be into the farming community at that time as I recall.

RAY: You were saying something about I think when I talked to you earlier that there used to be well out where you live now and that there used to be a Chinese garden

LEONARD: Yes it was that was the old Hasbrook place [00:04:30] and it was a Chinese garden in there and I remember that they raised all kinds of vegetables delivered to the stores and so it's farming from there on out including where the boat addition is now.

RAY: Was there much of a Chinese population here or was this?

LEONARD: Well supposedly I remember as a kid that down on Front Street there was a big house that isn't there across the street [00:05:00] from Lloyd's and we kids would steer clear and go around that because we always were under the impression that that's where the Chinese lived and that they'd get us so we would we'd take a wide berth around that big old house that sat in there. It was right across the street from where the Lloyd lumber is now on Front Street.

RAY: Did the Chinese come in with railroad or do you just come drifting in?

LEONARD: [00:05:30] Well the mines I think I think the mine Silver City and of course Idaho City and I think and the railroad I think I think a lot of Chinese coming to work on that and just more or less stayed and I don't recall of a big large Chinese population, there's stories about tunnels under 12th Avenue and [00:06:00] between Front and 1st Street and I would never in them myself I didn't see them. However Ed Huntley who come here in the 90s said that that there were such a thing and like I say I didn't see it myself but then supposedly they were in there putting there by the Chinese [00:06:30] and supposedly they're still there but sealed off with basement walls and things like that but I couldn't swear to it because I never was in them.

RAY: What I gather probably when you came to here you were fairly young boy but what did you do for recreation what old forms of entertainment they had here?

LEONARD: Well of course they as when we first come over here by [00:07:00] more or less you made your own recreation the old sugar beet factory out where Carnation Can is now they had a an old reservoir out there didn't have much water in it but we used to to go over there and go swimming and we swam in the Phyllis Canal we every place there was a puddle of water while you'd go swimming and just more or less [00:07:30] you made your own fun you didn't we didn't have organized recreation like we have this today and you had your friends your buddies and you'd get together and you'd fish Indian Creek you never got anything out of but a small fish or two but you went fishing. And we we made our own entertainment it was that's just the way it had to be of course when I got a little older got up in the teens why then we [00:08:00] started going to dances. They had the two main dance halls the Grand Casino which was set where the Idaho First National Bank is the main branch on the corner of 11th Avenue and 1st Street South and the old Moose Hall is was upstairs on the corner of 13th and Main there were there were the two places that [00:08:30] everybody went on Saturday night. And I mean they had crowds everybody went to the dance and so it was more or less that was the the way you amuse yourself that was the type of recreation that you that you had. A uh and I think I told you this before but Saturday night the big deal is to drive downtown and park [00:09:00] on the street and watch everybody walk by and if you seen somebody you knew I hollered and they come over and you talked and that's the way the way you more or less kept up with current events and how everybody else was in the town and around the town, or getting along and kept track of friends and families more or less that way and telephones weren't too plentiful as I recall. And so Saturday night was the big deal, the stores were all all open [00:09:30] till nine o'clock and you done your week shopping for your groceries if you lived out like we did and see when we when my father worked for the state school. It isn't there anymore but it used to be when you come from Meridian and it takes the corner you could look up on top of the hill there was there was a house set up there, so that was where we lived so we were out in the country and with [00:10:00] had a car but then it was a 1923 Model T and you didn't jump in it and run to the store every time you needed a loaf of bread. And my mother made our bread and canned in the fall she canned fruit vegetables things,m like I remember we used to buy the old Napa D was the Nampa department store [00:10:30] and it is there where Ben England's apartments are now. And they had a grocery department and it was the full department store and we go in there and buy five gallon buckets of jelly and 60 pound cans of honey and that's the way you bought your groceries, you just didn't run to the store every time you needed something you, and of course frozen foods were not the thing at that time, [00:11:00] in fact I don't recall even having them maybe they did but I don't recall and oh it was quite a way of life I'll tell you a lot different it is today

RAY: You know I think a lot of us here and and you know but remember about the Dewey Palace and what do you remember about that that must been probably in this heyday when you first came in here

LEONARD: Well yeah it was it wasn't [00:11:30] it wasn't near the what it had been. But it was still a very popular place people used to drive there. They had this beautiful dining room and it's too bad that everybody can't see the decor and the furnishings and the decorations that were in like gold ceilings, images on the ceilings. And [00:12:00] now these as I understood it were really really gold leaf you know they put those things in there and they were they were honest to God gold, and they had the parlor, and the dining room. And the dining room was quite quite well known through the whole valley that people come from Boise and all over to for Sunday to have Sunday dinner at the Dewey Palace. And then they had some businesses of course [00:12:30] in there and around the veranda they had rooms that Colonel Dewey had built in there for all different meeting rooms and things like that, and they converted those into some businesses, and I remember Taylor was downstairs in the basement. As I recall I think for a while as a real estate officer insurance officer something up in there. And [00:13:00] the that was that was really some building it was it was uh it's just too bad that it had to go and of course guess we can't stand in the way of progress and you know you can't you can't keep a dead horse, and it's not paying its way why you can't do anything about it but do what they did I guess, unless somebody would have come in and had a whole lot of money and it [00:13:30] wanted to spend it on something like. But it is it is too bad that they had to tear it down it was quite a thing

RAY: I remember too when I talked to you a little bit earlier that oh you kind of mentioned some of the businesses were right there around the railroad, and I don't think many of us realize but you were saying a lot of them used to be kind of in a downstairs

LEONARD: Yeah those buildings on 12th Avenue [00:14:00] between first and front whereas they had steps that went downstairs well the old gold Coin Bakery was on the corner and then Ed Huntley had a tailor shop downstairs there, and they there were several businesses downstairs. They had stairs that went down from the sidewalk down into them [00:14:30] they occupied the basement as well as the ground floor on them. And all there some of the old businesses that I can remember was oh I see the Blake hardware was the Blake variety store was on the corner of 14th and 13th [00:15:00] and 1st Street, and they had a ramp that went up the outside up to the upper floor now they this ramp went up to what later become the booth dance hall that I mentioned before. And of course George King his butcher shop was down there about where the Elks is now, and oh the corner there was a bank the old Idaho First National Bank was there on the corner [00:15:30] of 1st Street and 12th Avenue.

LEONARD: And before they went down and built where they are, of course they built first across the alley from where they are now, then the old Grand Casino dance hall I mentioned set on the corner and they later took that over and built the present Idaho main branches of Idaho First in there. Alexander's [00:16:00] had a big marble fronted store in there too, and oh the Hickeys were an insurance business, of course Ed Ware was an insurance business. They've just a Walt Bullock's jewelry store it's still there, and it was a #Mankey and Scott [00:16:30] jewelry store in there too, and and they had a big pedestal clock that set out on the sidewalk. And I'm sure you've seen them, they probably 15 feet tall or something like that with a big round clock sitting on top. And of course there was a vacant lot in next to let's see what's in there now the Stockman, [00:17:00] and then between the Stockman and I guess the Little Kitchen or the call yeah the Little Kitchen restaurant in there. The part that they remodeled you know just there was a vacant lot in there and for years and years and years, and finally fella come in they set up a round root beer stand in there. And that was in there for quite a while of course now it's a building, but [00:17:30] there was there were quite a few vacant lots around town now like down on Front Street, of course the fire cleaned that out the big fire they had back in early 1900. And a lot of that never was rebuilt they just it was just vacant lots in there and they had second-hand stores down in there, and uh two or three of them shorty lives we had a second-hand store down there. Corsons [00:18:00] had a second-hand store at the corner of 14th and front, and then they later moved down on front and 11th Avenue above the underpass. But talk about a second-hand store there, you had one they had everything in the world, old coal wood ranges in there just set aside beside a whole just lots of and they sold them for $5 to $25. They were used but you get [00:18:30] a good coal range for a coal wood range for $25 and a good usable one for 5. And oh it's there's lots of lots of things taking place over the last years that since I have been around here. I went all through school here I at the old Lakeview school [00:19:00] up through grade school went to Central Junior High when it was well it was practically new, then I went to graduating high school in 1936, out where well right here with the City Hall. And it I've seen a lot of changes, but you know you go along from year to year and you you know the change will [00:19:30] take place but you know unless you just sit down and think about it concentrate on it, why it just comes so gradual it you don't notice it particularly.

RAY: What what about prohibition here in Nampa when they they had I imagine that did Nampa have its normal share of bootleggers?

LEONARD: Well yes, yeah we had those there was a couple or three [00:20:00] of them that I knew about and I guess every kid in town knew about it. And of course out in Owyhee County, they were quite prevalent. They had stills all over Owyhee County and they had they had some of them here in town that. Tell the story and I didn't see this and but they tell the story of Indian Creek flooded one year in the spring, and over the whole practically [00:20:30] the whole north side of Nampa was under water, and the floated said that barrels of booze and bootleg whiskey are floated out of basements, floating around all over the north side. But like I say I didn't see that and but that's the story that we were always told. So we've had our our we're [00:21:00] just typical town and always have been, I'm real proud of Nampa. It's given me it certainly hasn't done me any harm and what I education I got and what I've done with my life was done right here, and I'm thankful for it and I appreciate the town, I'm proud of it and I'm glad that I this is where I sat down

RAY: But when [00:21:30] you've lived here continually ever since you came here in the mid 20s you pretty much lived right here at Nampa?

LEONARD: Well yeah, I was I left here went to Boise for one year before I went into service and but that was just a more or less a temporary thing so practically all the time.

RAY: When you mentioned Boise I got thinking about when you [00:22:00] first came here was the old inner urban line still running or is that pretty well closed down?

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