Basque Country

The museum at the sign's address lives in a boardinghouse. The brick house at 607 Grove Street, built in 1864 for the merchant and mayor Cyrus Jacobs, is the oldest surviving brick dwelling in Boise. From 1910 Basque families rented it, the Galdos, then the Bicandis, then Jose and Hermenegilda Uberuaga, who bought it in 1928 and kept boarders until 1969: sheepherders between seasons, who found meals, a bed and a table where Euskara was spoken. Adelia Garro Simplot, daughter of a Basque immigrant, bought it in 1983 to save it, and the museum opened there in 1985.

What the plaque says

Basque Country Idaho has a large Basque community that preserves its ancient European traditions in a new land of opportunity. Coming here originally to herd sheep on mountain and desert ranges, they shifted into other occupations as quickly as possible, making way for more of their countrymen to follow. Their sheep wagons often can be seen on grazing lands, and a Basque museum (607 Grove St. in Boise) interprets their life here. 379 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• World Center for Birds of Prey — 8.0 mi
  The hilltop where the peregrine falcon was bred back from DDT, and where condors for the Grand Canyon country still hatch.
• Old Idaho Penitentiary — 9.0 mi
  A territorial prison that ran for 101 years on conditions that barely changed, and closed the year its prisoners burned it.
• Basque Block — 10 mi
  A merchant's 1864 brick house became the boardinghouse where herders from the Basque Country found beds, meals and their own language.
• Idaho State Capitol — 11 mi
  Walls hauled from the prison quarry, heat pumped from 3,000 feet down, and its newest rooms built underground.

More markers nearby

• Oregon Trail — steps away
• Diversion Dam — 4.2 mi
• The Oregon Trail — 5.0 mi
• Beaver Dick's Ferry — 5.0 mi