Many Basque immigrants left herding sheep for other kinds of employment as soon as they could. Keeping boarding houses and restaurants for their newly arrived countrymen from Spain was one of those other jobs.

In December 1893, the Statesman noted: "The City Restaurant Yturraspe & Uberuaga will on Monday, January 1st, take charge of the City Restaurant and lodging house, which they have purchased from Russ Luark."

(Luark had run this lodging house and restaurant on Ninth Street between Main and Idaho for a dozen years before he decided to sell out and move to the eastern states).

"The new owners will run the restaurant in first class style in every respect. Meals will be furnished for 25 cents; beds 25 cents."

If these prices seem incredibly low, it should be remembered that in 1893 Idaho was in the midst of the worst national economic depression of the 19th century, and that even long-established Boise businesses were failing.

Another Basque restaurant, operated by Jose Mendiola, made a Statesman headline in November, 1901, after the restaurant burned: "Spanish Joe's place gets a scorching."

Mendiola was in business on 9th Street in a building owned by John Broadbent, a Boise jeweler who would make a fortune through shrewd investments in Boise real estate before moving to New York City. (The Broadbent Estate still had important downtown holdings when the city's redevelopment agency began acquiring land in the early 1970s).

The adventures and individual stories of Basque herders continued to regularly make the columns of the Statesman. In May 1911, these two items appeared: "Saves up $1,000 and returns to Spain to pass days in luxury. By the exercise of strict economy and thrift, Joseph Bonetas, a Basque sheepherder, saved $1,000 in seven years and yesterday he returned to the fatherland where he proposes to purchase a small farm and care for his family which he left there. Bonetas has not only been living as well as other herders with whom he had been associated, but he was likewise able to send home portions of his salary to help support his wife and child."

Such tales of quiet heroism and determination are common among the Basques and persuaded other men from Vizcaya to come to America and seek their own fortunes.

The second Statesman story that month relates the adventures of two Basque brothers who herded sheep in Wyoming and Idaho for 15 years without seeing each other or knowing each other's whereabouts. When they met by chance at Boise's Modern Rooming House on May 10, 1911, and compared stories, Juan and Manuel Martinez found that they had often been working only a few miles apart in those years.

In September, 1914, the architectural partnership of Nisbet & Paradice got a permit on behalf of Juan Anduiza to build what is probably the city's first building with a distinctively Basque feature. The Anduiza Hotel, near the corner of Seventh and Grove Streets has an indoor pelota (ball) court for playing a form of the Basque national game of jai alai called "pala." The game played in Boise was similar to handball, but was played with a hard ball and wooden bats off a concrete front wall and one side wall. You can still visit this unique bit of Basque history in the Basque Block on Grove Street.

The Statesman said that "There are now two handball courts in the city. One is in the rear of the Oregon Hotel and the other in the rear of the Star Rooms." The latter building, at 512 W. Idaho, is still standing, but its pelota court is long gone.

When teams from Boise and Shoshone competed in pelota games near Sixth and Grove in January, 1915, a crowd of 50 fans from Shoshone and Mountain Home came to town by train to root for their favorites.

The Statesman reported that the match had aroused great enthusiasm. Although the paper called the game "handball," it did explain that "it means as much to the Spanish as baseball and football do to Americans. It is an odd game played in a walled court. The ball is batted about with small paddles. Rules similar to the game of Rackets are used."

Even before the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Boise's Basque community had pledged its total allegiance to the United States. In a resolution drafted by Antonio Ascuenaga, adopted on March 29 by the city's leading Basques, and forwarded to Governor Moses Alexander, the community promised its full support of "the greatest nation beneath the sun."

Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history each Tuesday for the Statesman. Reach him at life@idahostatesman.com.