Chicago architect Henry John Schlacks gave you this six-story Renaissance Revival tower, built to make Boise feel like a bigger city. Constructed for Boise City real estate developer Walter E. Pierce in 1910–11, it was intended to signal local hopes that Boise City would become another Chicago. The facade reads as deliberate and muscular: a ground-floor stone base rises to brick pilasters that define seven bays, each holding a large plate glass window.
Terracotta bands separate the floors; ornamentation sits at the sixth floor beneath a denticulated cornice of galvanized iron. The National Register form notes Tourtellotte and Hummel as building designers, though Tourtellotte may have been only a supervising architect. Where you stand once sat Thompson's Livery barn at 8th and Bannock Streets; the Chicago firm of H. Ellenberger handled construction.
In 1911 the Idaho Statesman praised the work: "The architectural scheme is one of extreme simplicity, and the builder has given his work the appearance of massive solidity. The building's significance was recognized when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1978. Seven bays of plate glass climb past the terracotta bands to the galvanized iron cornice, the massive solidity the Idaho Statesman praised in 1911.