 Nampa started out as a Railroad town in the mid 1800’s. More and more Railroad tracks were laid through Nampa turning it into a very important Railroad town. Nampa was founded in 1886 by Europeans, and quickly grew from 15 homes to over 50. More and more businesses moved to Nampa, and it continued to grow until it was incorporated in 1890.
Most historic towns in this era had streets running true north and south, Nampa’s roads ran perpendicular to the railroad tracks, and the tracks went in a northwest to southwest direction through town. The north side is actually the northeast side of the tracks, and the Southside is really the southwest side of the tracks. The founder Alexander Duffes laid out Nampa’s streets this to prevent an accident like the one in Toronto Canada where a woman and her two children were killed by a train when there buggy wheel got stuck in the tracks. Nampa has one of the fanciest Oregon Short Line railroad depots built in the area.
The very first elementary school was Lakeview School built in the 1890’s; it was located on the hill at 6th Street and 12th Avenue North, with a full view of Lake Ethel. Just after the school’s centennial celebration, it was condemned and sold to the First Mennonite Church. In 2008 it was refurbished, and is now the Idaho Arts Charter School.
Lake Ethel was drained because it was causing some flooding in neighboring homes. The area was converted to Lakeview Park, it’s the largest park in Nampa and there are many community celebrations and events held there.
 Colonel William H. Dewey struck it rich mining in Silver City, realized there was a big advantage having four railroad lines going through town, built the very elegant Dewey Palace Hotel In 1902 at a cost of $250,000.00. After dying in the hotel in 1903, he left his son $1,000,000.00. The great fire of 1909 burned several blocks of downtown Nampa, but the hotel survived until it was razed in 1963 because it was too costly to renovate the grand structure. You can find the chandelier and the safe of the hotel at the Canyon County Historical Museum that is now the old train depot on Front Street. After demolition the location on First Street between 11th and 12th Ave. South was sold to private a company that included a bank and tire company, which replaced the hotel with more modern structures. A public use small park  was later placed across the street from the old hotel as a collaboration between the local business council and an Eagle Scout project for the Boy Scouts of America. There was a sculpture of running horses that was given to the project.
There was a library built downtown in 1908, but it burned down in 1966. The Nampa Public Library replaced it and is located on the corner of 1st Street and 11th Avenue South in the old bank building.
The Deer Flat Reservoir was for irrigation storage and it was built by the United States Reclamation Service from 1906 to 1911. It is known by the locals as Lake Lowell. The lake is  surrounded by the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge that was established in 1909 by then President Theodore Roosevelt, the US Fish and Wildlife Service administer to the refuge.
In 1910 the Idaho State School and Hospital was built for the developmentally challenged people in the community and it opened in 1918. It had a large farm which was run and worked by residents. Some of the less challenged residents’ cared for the residents’ that couldn’t take care of themselves. Major changes have taken since the state schools opening, the farm was sold to a golf course, the residents no longer take care of each other. The institution is still in operation, though only a few buildings still in use as housing for juvenile offenders.
Nampa started holding an annual harvest festival and farmers market sometime around 1908. The community celebrated and the festival evolved into the Snake River Stampede Rodeo in 1937, it still continues today. It’s one of the top 12 rodeos in the pro circuit.
The local Nazarene Church built a small elementary school in 1913. The school evolved into the Northwest Nazarene Collage around 1915, later becoming Northwest Nazarene University that educates about 2500 students. |