Chinese Gardens

Chinese Gardens in Boise

Andy Louie, on right, is pictured in 1961 harvesting oinions with a family member. Boise City Archives, 2023.21

Louie Quong and family, circa 1927. Boise City Archives, MS100, Image 4827f

When gold was discovered in the 1860s, thousands of miners flooded into Idaho in search of riches. Among the new settlers who emigrated here were a Chinese minority who formed roughly 28.5% of Idaho’s population by 1870. In addition to mining, Chinese immigrants worked in a variety of professions and provided needed services such as growing vegetables and produce for households, restaurants, and grocery stores.

Mining boomtowns in Idaho initially lacked access to fresh vegetables, fruits, and greens, and without fresh produce, people living in the remote mountain regions suffered poorer health. Chinese immigrants, many of whom had farming experience, found a foothold in Idaho’s economy by establishing their own gardens and supplying fresh fruits and vegetables to miners. Chinese gardeners cultivated land in Boise and worked plots in what is today Garden City. These gardeners not only marketed produce locally, but also regionally. Produce was delivered to local customers daily, first by horse-drawn wagon and later by trucks resulting in the term “truck gardens.”

The Louie and Quong families both have long and storied histories in the Boise community, and both established very successful produce gardens. The patriarch of the Louie family, Ah Su, immigrated to Idaho in the 1800s and eventually established a produce business that was passed down through multiple generations. What originally started as a truck garden eventually became a wholesale enterprise with customers including Boise Produce, Albertsons, and Safeway. Andy Louie, Ah Su’s, great-grandson, recalls working on the family farm as a teenager:

“It was hard work and we just worked pretty much day and night. I was going to school at that time. But we worked day and night, and in the fall when they harvested green onions; we would get all the onions, green onions, into the garage and then we’d bunch them. We’d bunch them until midnight. And then clean it up and deliver it to the wholesale house. Of course, by the time you come back, it’s about one o’clock; the next morning I had to get up at 7 o’clock and go to school, so it was pretty tough.” – Andy Louie, speaking about working on the family farm as a teenager, City of Boise oral history project

The Quong family has a similarly long history in the Boise Valley. Louie Quong immigrated to Idaho in the early 1900s and began truck gardening on the Tom Davis estate. In 1935, Louie and his wife, Mabel, purchased land in Eagle and ran Quong’s Berry Farm for multiple decades. Quong’s strawberries were well-known throughout the valley and were sold at local markets. Quong’s son, William, continued the family tradition through the second half of the twentieth century, operating a farm in the Treasure Valley which grew strawberries, cauliflower, green onions, and spearmint.

References

For a complete list of references, please contact artsandhistory@cityofboise.org and mention "Chinese Gardens".