File #59: "Leonard Bowles_2"

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Leonard Bowles_2

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Leonard Bowles_2

RAY: We're kind of going along, taking this a little bit chronologically. Folks, can you remember about Nampa here during the war? It wasn't World War II. It doesn't seem like it's been 40 years ago we had that, but...

LEONARD: Well, it has been, and of course, I was in the service, and like I said, I lived in Boise the year before and during the year, but I was back before it was over, and... It was here [00:00:30] about, I suppose, the same as it was every place. Everybody was... You got gas stamps, you got coffee stamps, you got meat stamps and food stamps, you know, you got staples, sugar, things like that, and... But I think as far as I knew, people were patriotic. [00:01:00] It was a job that had to be done, had to be finished, and everybody went along with it and got by the best way they could. They ran on some old wore-out tires and did a lot of walking when they ran out of gas stamps, but I don't recall any particular... rallies or [00:01:30] trouble around here or as far as it goes. I don't know of any place, but I think the people in Nampa had their minds made up that we were in it and we had to get out of it, and out of it, and I can remember the big to-do when everybody in the country was downtown when when it was over. I recall the night that it was over, and [00:02:00] everybody went downtown, and and the people were hollerin' and had a big time, but ,and I think that they were glad it was over, but they were never upset about the fact that we were in it. We were in it, and we had to get out of it, and it, and that's just more or less the attitude everybody had. It [00:02:30] was one of those things that happened, and there and there wasn't anything you could do about it, so it, so you just had to go along with it and do the best you could to get out.

RAY: Get done with it best you could to get out.

LEONARD: Right. with. Right.

RAY: We were just kind of talking. We've kind of gone through the whole thing, but just kind of your recollection, what seems to be some of the biggest changes [00:03:00] you've seen in Nampa between really from the time we came and actually today? Have you thought about that?

LEONARD: Well, Ray, like I say, when you live here and it happens gradually, you just don't notice it particularly. I think probably the big change is the fact that the fact that we are not a [00:03:30] town like we were. Golly, you know, you didn't have, I think they had three men on the police force, as I remember. I remember I knew them, and I think we didn't have planning and zoning. We didn't have uh if you wanted to do something with something you owned, well, you could do it, and of course you can't do that now, [00:04:00] and that's not only here. It's It's everywhere and probably for a good reason, and of course there weren't nearly as many people, and the businesses were, our businesses are much, much bigger now than they used to be. They used be. They used to be independent business people, you know, and they had their little shops and their stores with the exception of C.C. [00:04:30] Anderson and the Nampa Department Store, and they were the two department stores, and and then everybody else was around them and and like uh all your jewelry stores. Grocery stores, you used to have several grocery stores downtown. The Hostetler Grocery was downtown, and Shumates had a grocery downtown, and the and the Old Blue and [00:05:00] White Grocery, and Consumers.

LEONARD: I think that probably the big change is just a matter of growth, you you know, and the good and the bad that comes [00:05:30] with growth, and I think it's been pretty well managed. I managed. I think we've done a pretty good job. I should say we, the powers, you know, the people that were responsible for it have for it have done a pretty good job on it, and it's a sense we're not going to go back. We're back. We're going to keep going from now on, and it's on, and it's going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

RAY: [00:06:00] We hope. Anyway, we'll stop you a [sec] You told me, Leonard, that you went to all through grade school and high school here in Nampa. What do you remember about the Nampa football team, the team, the athletic team?

LEONARD: Well, we've had some dandies. We've We've had some real good ones through the years. Back in the late 20s and the 30s, we had [00:06:30] some real, real good athletic teams, football. real football. They had some real, real fine football players. Some Some of them still live around here, and of course a lot of them don't. I remember Nick Eastman, he's still here. He He was an outstanding football player, and then you had the Spoggi brothers. They were in the early 30s, late 20s [00:07:00] and early 30s. Then from 1932, 33, and 34, we had an exceptionally good football team. That team. That was when Howard Smith, who's down at the Smitty's Shoe Shop, was the quarterback on the football team, and Bob Huth was in the backfield, Dick Wiley in the backfield, and Dwight Savage. They had a line that was [00:07:30] exceptionally good. Of course, the big deal was to beat Boise, and they beat Boise three or four years in a row right through there.

LEONARD: And basketball, they had exceptionally good basketball teams. And then later on, when Babe Brown was the coach here, they had another season [00:08:00] where they, several seasons where they'd done real well in in both football and basketball. And over the years, we've had exceptionally good athletic teams and good athletes in the high school. Of course, our football games were were played right next to the city hall out here, and basketball [00:08:30] began with the auditorium in in the high school. It was converted to the basketball floor, and floor, and then they later on built the gymnasium that still sits the gymnasium that still sits out in the back of the city hall, and they played the basketball there. Then they got to playing football out out at the old rodeo grounds. They had, at that time, they they had covered bleachers, and they played their [00:09:00] important, like like the Boise-Caldwell games, that were played out on the old rodeo field. But overall, over the years, we have nothing to be ashamed of as of as far as athletes and athletic teams are concerned. They've They've done real well.

LEONARD: Of course, talk about sports. [00:09:30] Rodeo is considered a sport, I guess, and the rodeo, of course, has been a big thing in Nampa for 65 or 75 years. I don't remember now just how long it's been, but but it's been a long time. The Old Harvest Festival, that's probably the first big doing that I remember going to in Nampa was the Old Harvest Festival. They had that on the street. It would be on 2nd Street and 12th Avenue, [00:10:00] down 12th Avenue block, right down the main part of town. The of town. The streets were all blocked off, and they off, and they had each grange and club, and they had their own displays, and and they really all went all out for that. They had exceptional displays from the granges, and farm people would [00:10:30] take part in it, and it was really something. And then, of course, Carnival with it, and then the big rodeo. But uh, I guess it's probably that that was the first thing, the big thing that I can remember going to here in town.

RAY: I was thinking, too, that when I talked to you before, you mentioned about how it got [00:11:00] started. You had a county agent got started. You had a county agent or something like that that came in. He wanted to show off the products, and they really started that by going down to the railroad station and displaying station and displaying the products you grew around here. That here. That was kind of the start of the festival. Am I right on that?

LEONARD: I don't know, Ray, on that. I don't know. I couldn't say one way or the other. All I remember is that it was going when we landed was going when we landed here, and they and they uh [00:11:30] had their own booths, and they put their own displays up, and it up, and it was... Well, it was a fair, actually, like a county fair, only it was the Nampa Harvest Festival, and they had just done an exceptional job on it. It was really something job on it. It was really something to see and go through.

RAY: And that just [00:12:00] kind of evolved into the rodeo we have now.

LEONARD: Yeah, they dropped the... Well, see, they had that in the fall, and I don't the fall, and I don't know what reasons that it was completely dropped. I don't know why it was completely dropped. I was on the rodeo dropped. I was on the rodeo board for 16 years, which is part of the Harvest Festival Association, and [00:12:30] I know over the years they'd the years they'd always talk about why couldn't we do it again. And so the reason it was dropped, I just don't know. But...it uh Like I said, it was held in the fall. The weather was so unpredictable that that they changed the rodeo up into July where they were more or less assured [00:13:00] of decent weather and not so much rain, not much chance of rain. And so that's how the rodeo got separated from the from the Harvest Festival or the other ... But, you know, in July it's a little early to make their displays of their produce that that they raised through the summer, and so [00:13:30] it's never... If it stopped and why, I don't know.

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