Pocatello to document the history of the Historic Triangle Neighborhood
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POCATELLO — Multiple organizations are teaming up to record the history of a once-established but now long-gone Gate City neighborhood.
The city of Pocatello, the Pocatello NAACP and the Bonneville Neighborhood Association will hold an informational meeting about a project to document the Historic Triangle Neighborhood. They hope that historians, members of the community and anyone with a personal connection to the old neighborhood will attend Wednesday, Jan. 17 at 2 p.m. at 427 North 6th Avenue.
“I would highly encourage them to reach out as soon as they hear about it or come to the meeting because we want to connect with them,” said Jim Anglesey, long-range senior planner for Pocatello.
The Historic Triangle Neighborhood was bordered by Center Street to the south, South 8th Avenue to the east and the rail yards to the west. At the turn of the 20th century, a diverse Idaho community began to form within these boundaries.
The Triangle Neighborhood was made up of Black, Hispanic, Asian, Italian, Greek and French people who moved to the area in search of new opportunities. The neighborhood became home to many thriving businesses owned by the new residents. They established churches, which were the centers of the community.
The largest employer of the new residents was the railroad, but people also worked at the J.R. Simplot Company and the FMC Corporation. Many of the women worked as maids or as secretaries.
Ken Monroe, president of the Pocatello NAACP, grew up in the already well-established Triangle Neighborhood. Born in 1952, Monroe and his mother moved to the Triangle in 1954. His stepfather worked as a furnace tapper for FMC.
As a boy, Monroe walked through the streets of the Triangle and saw small local shops open for business and families sitting out on their porches.
“There was a lot more interaction between parents and kids. There was a lot more interaction between families,” Monroe said.
As the neighborhood formed during the first half of the 20th century, so did a border between Pocatello’s two populations. The more affluent white population lived on the west side of the train tracks, and the minorities lived on the east side.
“That’s where we were put and basically, to go outside of that particular area at the time was something that was unheard of,” Monroe said.
Monroe said that sometimes when he talks to people, they assume that people who lived in the Triangle had it good because of how close the community was.
“That was the good part of being in that area. I think we all felt like family because we were all kind of forced to be there,” Monroe said.
When Monroe walks through the area of Pocatello that used to the Triangle, now he sees mostly empty car lots. This is because through city planning practices, the neighborhood was slowly cleared out during the 1950s and 1960s as he grew up.
This happened at the same time as a nationwide urban renewal movement, which pushed minorities out of their homes to new areas. Through the use of eminent domain, cities could claim property that was considered slum and blight.
“Unfortunately, it was racially motivated, and Pocatello isn’t any different from that history,” Anglesey said.
As more and more people were forced from their homes, Monroe said his family moved farther out from the Triangle, but they still stayed in Pocatello for a time.
Despite the Black community seeing growth in Pocatello in the early 1970s, families started to move away to other parts of the country where to find better opportunities. By 1979, Monroe did the same and pursued a job opportunity in Boise.
Then a little over 20 years later in 1997, he moved back to Pocatello to take care of his mother. He found that most of the Black community that once called the Gate City home had left and not returned.
Pocatello has received a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council for $10,000 to capture the history of the Historic Triangle Neighborhood. The aim of the project is to film a documentary.
The grant lasts through October, so city staff will spend time gathering oral history, documents, images and anything else that sheds light on the neighborhood and put together a script. At that point, the city will find a producer or look for additional grant money to hire someone to make the documentary.
Anglesey said they want to get as much information as they can from people with knowledge about the Triangle so that they can put together a clear picture of what it was like to live there.
“We want to get their input and insight into what this place was,” Anglesey said.