Short answers, pulled from the story.
The name Boise most likely derives from French. French Canadian fur trappers working for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1820s called the tree-lined valley the "rivière boisée," meaning "the wooded river," because it stood out as a distinctive oasis in the surrounding high desert. A separate account credits a French-speaking guide who, upon seeing the river valley after weeks in dry terrain, called out "Les bois! Les bois!" meaning "The woods! The woods!"
Most local and longtime residents pronounce Boise as BOY-see, the pronunciation listed on the city's official website. Newcomers and visitors tend to say BOY-zee. The difference is sometimes used as a shibboleth to identify who is from the area and who is not.
Boise was established as a military outpost in 1863, during the gold rush era. The site was chosen because it sat near the intersection of the Oregon Trail and roads connecting the Boise Basin and Owyhee mining districts. The territorial legislature first attempted to incorporate the city in December 1864, but incorporation was not approved by voters until the 6th of January 1868.
The Snake War was an armed conflict between the U.S. military and Native warriors, primarily Shoshone and Bannock, that lasted from 1866 to 1868. It is counted as the deadliest of the Indian Wars in the West, with 1,762 casualties on both sides. The conflict grew out of escalating tensions in the Boise Valley as gold rushes brought settlers through Indigenous territory, and it followed the unratified Treaty of Fort Boise of the 10th of October 1864, which the U.S. Senate never approved.
In 1955, Boise police interrogated hundreds of residents in a crackdown on what authorities called a "homosexual ring." Sixteen men were arrested, including a bank vice president. The trials received sensational press coverage, and one man received a life sentence. The episode is considered one of the most severe local examples of the national lavender scare that targeted gay men and women during the 1950s.
Idaho's Basque community is one of the largest in the United States, with around 7,000 members counted in 2000, many of whom live in Boise. Downtown Boise features the Basque Block, and the city hosts Jaialdi, a major Basque festival held every five years. Boise's former mayor David H. Bieter is of Basque descent, and Boise's sister city is Gernika in the Basque Country of Spain.