The meeting speaker was HannaLore Hein who is the State Historian at the Idaho State Historical Society. She mentioned the mission and vision of this executive branch agency. Then she spoke of the mission and vision of the America250 event which is a national effort to celebrate 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.                                                                                                               One of the America250 activities is called Move250 which encourages people to walk 250 miles in 2026 and to log their mileage on the America250 website. Another initiative is to log over a million service hours across the USA. America250 will also be saving oral historical recording. HallaLore has been working with Marsha Wing to include the Rotary Club of Boise in this effort. On July 5th, there will be an America potluck where people around the country will be encouraged to get together and have a potluck to raise awareness of food insecurity. Finally on July 8, there will be a simultaneous reading of the Declaration of Independence.

     The last part of the presentation was  a discussion of the history of the Harris Ranch Subdivision. The land was originally used by the Shoshoni and Bannock Tribes. But after several land acts, the native Americans were no longer permitted on this land.  After which the land was surveyed by Lafayette Cartee. Once surveyed settlers could acquire plots of land. One settler was a woman named Mary Hallock Foote; the profits of her drawings and writings were used to initially fund the construction of the New York Canal. By the early 1900’s there were over 60.000 miles of canals and laterals throughout the Treasure Valley. And these canals allowed the settlement of the area. Later Boise River dams were built and the Railroad came to town. In the 1940’s Dallas and Irene Harris, who owned land up near Idaho City, wanted to do timber extraction. They were so successful that the business was sold to Boise Cascade. After which the Harrises went into ranching. Finally the planned community that we know of as Harris Ranch was developed. HannaLore left us with copies of a hard cover book that she co-wrote which describes this history.