20 Incredible Photos of Old Boise Hotels from 1910-1980

Travel back in time on Google Maps and you’ll be stunned just how much Downtown Boise has changed since the very first time the tech giant sent their street view car through the city. 

The year was 2007. As you take the virtual cruise through Downtown Boise, you’ll notice some well known hotels missing from the photos. The Inn at 500 Capitol was a parking lot. 

The Hyatt Place at 10th and Bannock was also a parking lot. 

Front Street welcomed two more hotels too. The present day Hilton Garden Inn was a vacant Lot. We can’t remember what this little brick building at the corner of 6th Street and Front was, but it’s gone. Home2Suites went up in its place. 

Those five hotel projects brought more than 700 rooms to Downtown Boise and the city’s “room boom” hasn’t stopped yet. Cal and Ashley Elliot completed a total restoration of the old Hotel Manitou. Located above what locals know as the old Blues Bouquet, the hotel had been vacant for nearly 60 years. Now known as The Avery, the 39-room hotel boutique hotel opened in August 2023. 

READ MORE: 76 Crazy Photos of How Much Downtown Boise Changes in 15 Years

A few of the major construction projects happening now in Downtown Boise are also new hotels. Hotel Renegade is nearing completion at 11th and Grove. When it opens in May, it will provide Boise visitors with another 122 rooms. And if we read the signs correctly, it looks like there’s another new hotel project just starting to get underway across from Simplot’s headquarters. 

The “room boom” has been an asset to people traveling to Boise for big events like the Big Sky Basketball tournament, conventions and conferences taking place at the Boise Center and Treefort Music Fest. They’re all within walking distance to the venues. 

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But before these fancy new hotels? Longtime Boise locals may remember some of these vintage hotels that we found pictures of in postcards being sold online. Some disappeared during Boise’s aggressive urban renewal in the 1970s. Others were converted for other uses. How many of them do you remember?!