Intermountain Institute campus featured in historic walk

Replacement of floor joists between the second and third floors of Weiser’s historic Hooker Hall were recently completed and museum volunteers have been working diligently to put local history displays back in place in time for this Saturday’s, Oct. 12, walking tour of the “old Tute.”

 Hosted by the Weiser Architectural Preservation Committee and the Snake River Heritage Center, and led by knowledgeable tour guides from the Idaho State Historic Preservation Office, Dan Everhart and Jason Tippeconnic Fox, there are two time slots for the tour, either 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. 

 At a mere $10 each, tickets are available at the Weiser Public Library or online by visiting the Snake River Heritage Center website.

 Everhart told the Signal American the State Historic Preservation Office has led at least two community tours in recent years.

 “We’ve done a tour of a residential neighborhood and last year a tour downtown,” Everhart said. “This is just an expansion of that program with a tour of the Intermountain Institute’s campus.

 “We’ll meet at Hooker Hall and folks can gather in the auditorium where we’ll give some context,” he said. “We always want to start with a little general information. Why is this place here, how did it develop, what was before it, what was after it, and then actually because the Snake River Heritage Center has recently completed repairs, we will go to the third floor ballroom to look out over the landscape, the campus, and place the history in its context.”

 Everhart said the entire tour will take about an hour and a-half, and will include some of the lesser-known buildings that were connected to the original campus.

 “A local property owner is allowing us to come into his mechanical yard behind the campus, we’ll look at the shop building and the water tower building, the laundry, and at least from a distance we’ll see the heating plant,” he said. “What some folks might not be as familiar with, the school closed in 1932/33, and so there’s a later life for the Institute, not only was it the high school, but before it was the high school it was used by the National Youth Administration as a vocational campus. There are some buildings that date from that NYA time period, so we’ll take a look at those, too.

 “What is interesting and unique about the campus, while we have historic institutional campuses around the state, what we see in Intermountain Institute is almost frozen in time,” Everhart added. “Not that there have been no changes, of course, but seeing an almost wholly intact early 20th century, pre-WWI, certainly pre-WWII campus is really unusual. It’s unusual for Idaho, and I think it’s unusual for our intermountain region. The point is, it is unusual to find an institutional campus that is so complete and so unchanged. You don’t have to squint very hard to imagine this place in its heyday.”

 Late last week, SRHC board treasurer Gina Applegate told the Signal American volunteers had been returning and restaging displays in the two big rooms that had been emptied for the joist repairs.

 “We are feeling oh, so much better,” Applegate said. “We ended up painting the hallway and both rooms, since it was empty. We are really close, and I think we’ll be able to let the folks on the walking tour, even if it’s not 100 percent, we want everyone to see we are back.”

 Originally estimated to cost around $65,000, Applegate said the repair final costs came in at almost $85,000.

 “We did have some funds they have been saving, and we’ve applied for some grants,” she said. “We are up next with the 100 Friends group, but you do have to plead your case. That’s where we are. Now, it’s just a matter of funds to be able to keep the place open. After we’ve gone through all of this, we want people to visit more often and become members.

 “You don’t realize the scope of what we have or if people understand the scope of what we have up here,” Applegate added. “These volunteers have so lovingly attended to it. There is a huge amount of education to receive just by touring around and I would just highly encourage folks to come up and look. The building itself is so amazing.”