Mysterious message could be seen from I-84 near Boise for a decade. What did it mean?
In the early 2000s, the hills west of Interstate 84 near the Eisenman Road exit in Boise were much less crowded than they are today. There was no Amazon fulfillment center, Winco distribution warehouse or massive truck stop across the freeway from Micron.
Instead, a lone house sat on the hillside. And for roughly a decade, mysterious 85-foot-tall letters near the home spelled out a message in the sagebrush: IRIS.
Photos from Google Earth first show the message in June 2002, a crisp brown square with meticulous green letters nearly as large as the house itself. Over the years, the sign began to fade as sagebrush crept back into the once-bare ground. By 2006, photos show, it was much harder to make out. By 2010, it was nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding scrub.
In 2012, a path was created near the home, cutting in half the remnants of the message.
So where did the sign come from, and what did it mean?
An Ada County property records search indicated that the home was owned by a woman named Dianne Paulsen during the years when the IRIS sign first appeared. Efforts from the Idaho Statesman to reach Paulsen were unsuccessful, but business records indicated Paulsen was one of the owners of Blue Cloud Iris — a flower farm.
According to an archived bulletin from the American Iris Society, Blue Cloud sold “hundreds of bearded varieties” of irises, as well as historic and foreign flowers.
Brooks Crowe, who purchased the home from Paulsen in 2005, told the Statesman in an email that irises were Paulsen’s favorite flower. He didn’t share the same passion, so he let the sagebrush grow back, gradually fading the curious sign.
Crowe sold the house in 2016, but he said the IRIS message drew questions during the 11 years he owned the home. He said some people thought the sign was meant for airplanes landing at the nearby Boise airport.
Fred Swank, a local real estate agent who listed the house for Paulsen, told the Statesman in an interview that the home was unique and at one point had a bomb shelter in the garage that was later filled in. Swank said he didn’t recall the IRIS sign but remembered the scenery from the hill.
“It was a beautiful view in the evening,” he said. “You could see the whole town down the freeway.”
This story was originally published June 21, 2023 at 1:54 PM.
