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John William Eagleson was involved in a variety of financial and banking organizations. He served
as Ada County treasurer from 1898 to1902 and was assistant cashier at the Capitol State Bank
between 1899 and 1906. John became Idaho state treasurer in 1914 and served until 1920. He
served as president of the Idaho Fire Insurance Company until 1927 and then became involved in a
Boise real estate business. Unlike his brothers, he moved away from Boise and died in Iowa in 1958.
Harry Kerr Eagleson started his career as a traveling hardware salesman in Sioux City, Iowa. He
arrived in Boise in 1894 and partnered with Charles J. Sinsel in a fruit and produce company,
shipping one of the first carloads of prunes to Europe. He worked with his father and brothers in all
aspects of the corporation. He died in 1948.
Charles Eagleson attended the Nebraska Agricultural College in Lincoln and pursued civil
engineering and farming, including managing the 1,200-acre Eagleson ranch, which was located
west of the Vista Neighborhood. The Eagleson family specialized in cattle and hogs and grew alfalfa
and various grains on the ranch. Charles and his wife, Mary, built a home in the Vista Neighborhood,
where they lived until 1967. After Charles died, Mary moved to Oregon to live with their son, Craig.
Beginning in 1909 and ending in the 1930s, the Eaglesons began to subdivide their land in Section
21 in the western side of the neighborhood. The family members platted Eagleson Park,
Subdivisions Nos. 1 – 4, Eagleson Park Place, and Eagleson Park Addition. The subdivisions were
originally platted with numbered streets running east and west and named streets north and south.
The numbered streets corresponded to streets platted in the adjoining South Boise subdivisions.
When the village of South Boise was annexed to the city of Boise in 1913, the numbered streets
within the village boundaries were changed to avoid conflict with other streets in the city. The
early numbering system in the Vista Neighborhood would remain until the 1940s when the area
was annexed to the city, also to avoid confusion.
It was not unusual for developers to use family names for streets and the Eaglesons followed that
tradition. Neighborhood streets Hervey, Gourley, and Kerr are Eagleson family names. Other
examples within the Vista Neighborhood include streets within the Abbs and Broxon Additions on
the west side of Shoshone. Walter and Mattie Abbs platted their subdivision in 1914 and named
streets after themselves. William T. Booth, who platted the Hillcrest Subdivision, and was involved
in a myriad of development schemes throughout Boise and the Vista Neighborhood, named streets
after his relatives and children. These include Ormond, Norville, Helen and Jessie Streets, among
others.
The Eaglesons exemplify 20th century developers. With a diverse set of skills and business acumen,
the family acquired large tracts of land, utilizing them first for ranches and farms and then
promoting and developing them as neighborhoods as demand for housing increased. The Eaglesons
developed property in other parts of Boise, including the Hillcrest Country Club and many of the
neighborhoods adjacent to the club. Other developers were active in the Vista Neighborhood, but the
change brought to the area by the Eagleson family have had a lasting effect.