The headstone, etched with the word "Papa," stands in the Pioneer Cemetery, near the fence on the Warm Springs side. Jesus Urquides was born in Mexico in 1833. He came to the Boise area from California, drawn by the discovery of gold in the Boise Basin in 1863.
Urquides became a mule packer of great renown. He brought supplies to mining camps in Silver City, Atlanta, Challis and other Idaho cities.
According to one story in Max Delgado's biography, "Jesus Urquides: Idaho's Premier Muleteer," Urquides once figured out how to carry a nearly two-mile-long steel cable to Central Idaho. Cutting the cable wasn't an option, so he wound it into a huge coil and attached it to the backs of 35 mules arranged in three rows.
In 1879, Urquides inherited land at 115 Main St. Fellow Mexican-born muleteers settled nearby. By the 1930s, more than 35 cabins stood in the area. Boiseans knew the neighborhood as Urquides Village or Spanish Village. Urquides died there in 1928 at the age of 92. After a fire in the early 1970s damaged several homes in the village, the city condemned them and demolished the neighborhood.
Two new additions to the area pay tribute to the pioneer muleteer. The Jesus Urquides Memorial, an outdoor installation by Dwaine Carver near the former village at Main and 1st Streets, includes sculptural pieces, interpretive plaques and a bronze rendition of an old-time camera with Urquides' image. And note, when you sit in the city bus shelter near the Urquides Memorial, it's the muleteer's face rendered in graphic red and white that's gazing down at you.
Pioneer Cemetery: 460 E. Warm Springs Ave.
Anna Webb: 377-6431
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