Thursday, October 25, 2007

Indian Creek Restoration

The City of Caldwell is uncovering Indian Creek. It was covered years ago and roads and businesses were built over it. Now Caldwell is trying to uncover and restore it and a means of revitalizing the downtown. What they've done so far looks pretty good. I didn't see many new businesses there, but it's early in the project. It certainly looks like it could attract interest.

This photo shows the eventual plan, and a bit of the work in progress in the background.

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This photo is of the completed section. Very nice. I think Indian Creek dries up in the winter, unfortunately. The water wheel is a nice touch.

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Another part of the creek has a walkway over it, and this is a close up of the detail in an arch over the walkway.

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This shows the water flowing under a pizza joint and then under the street in front of the pizza place, and out into the sun on the other side of the street. The building is supported on wooden pilings. The street, i.e., bridge, is supported on concrete pilings. Some old duffer I ran into taking the pictures told me that a carwash located about where the water wheel is collapsed into the creek. I guess the wooden pilings gave out.

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This photo shows a newly uncovered portion. The creek is being routed to the right of where it currently flows. Where you see it flowing under the street will just dry up and the area left as an emergency overflow route. And, most likely, home for vagrants.

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3 comments:

Paige said...

That's great that the river is being restored! Of course I can't believe that anyone would build over it in the first place, but not everyone sees the value in natural settings I suppose. The arch is very nice.

Anonymous said...

The arch is very nice. It has some interesting detail. Back in the day they must have had good reason (so they thought) to cover up the creek. Think of the expense involved; they must have been committed.

slfisher said...

Something you might not know is that the guy in Caldwell who spearheaded the project and got a lot of the grants for it is now Kuna's planning and zoning director.