I grew up in Boise but haven't lived there since '70. At that time, Boise and Pocatello were in competition to be the largest city in the Idaho. Both had just topped 50k. They were annexing everything around them but Pocatello ran out of places to annex while Boise just kept going. At them time, Eagle and Meridian were small farm towns 'way out there'. Not any more.
I live fifty miles north west of Boise. I vividly remember the first time I came over the hill on the freeway to enter Boise. It was the fourth grade field trip to see the Capitol Building, State Historical Museum, and Boise Zoo.
The sign along the freeway read "Entering Boise Population 35,000" Wow, the BIG City.
We could get two deer tags each, and an elk tag. Tags were good for anything with hair. Seasons lasted for several weeks. Deer and elk seasons overlapped, deer season was through the rut. And we had no observable wolf predation in the state. Dad bought 300 acres of ground on which he was able to run 100 cows, and my brother and I could burn up a couple boxes of twenty gauge shells each day pheasant hunting, for $12,000
Then the Cali invasion started about the time I graduated HS in 1974.
Though, I suppose we can not entirely blame the wolves on the Cali imports.
