Facing you rises the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, seat of Boise's Roman Catholic diocese and heart of its parish life. This is the seat of the Diocese of Boise and the Bishop of Boise, a building recognized for its importance when it was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. A few years later, the rest of the parish buildings on Block 90 were added to what the records call the Domestic Register of Historic Places, and in 1982 those parish buildings were also folded into the surrounding Fort Street Historic District as contributing properties to the St. John’s Cathedral Block.
Your feet stand where a long story began: the first Catholic congregation in the territorial capital was dedicated on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1870, though that initial church was destroyed by fire only eighteen days later. A replacement wood-frame structure was soon raised to serve the local faithful and to become the designated cathedral of the Vicariate Apostolical of Idaho. Between the cathedral, the parish buildings on Block 90, and the Fort Street neighborhood, that layered story still stands.