1. “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul graduated from Centennial High School a year early with the Class of 1998. He then left Boise and drove to Los Angeles with his mom in a 1982 Toyota Corolla to pursue his acting career with $6,000 in savings. The rest is blue meth history.
2. During the run of the final eight episodes of the critically acclaimed show “Breaking Bad,” Aaron Paul created a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Boise for fans. The prize was tickets to watch a live stream of the next episode.
3. The Broncos are the pride of BSU. They play their home games at Albertsons Stadium, which is best known for its bright blue turf. Commonly referred to as the “Smurf Turf,” it was the first non-green field in American football.
4. There is a common belief that the NCAA banned the use of non-green football fields after BSU installed its famous Smurf Turf. But it’s nothing more than a bogus rumor. There is no such rule and there are a few other schools around the country that now have non-green football fields.
5. However, after teams complained that the Broncos were getting an unfair advantage by wearing their uniforms against the blue turf, the Mountain West Conference banned the team from wearing their all-blue uniforms during home games.
6. BSU’s mascot is Buster the Bronco, who also happens to have his own children’s book.
7. The school’s library, named for grocery pioneer and longtime Boise resident Joe Albertson, is a 200,000-square-foot facility in the center of the campus.
8. The final scene of John Waters’ low-budget, underground hit “Pink Flamingos” was set in Boise.
9. Boise was crowned as the number one Adventure City in all of the United States by National Geographic.
10. Boise takes full advantage of their state’s fame for potatoes. While other cities usually drop giant glass balls on New Year’s Eve, last year Boise dropped a giant Idaho Potato to ring in the New Year.
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11. If you’ve always pronounced Boise like “Boy-zee,” you’ve been saying it wrong all along. Locals here say “Boy-see.” And yes, they hear the difference.
12. Looking to make the big bucks? You might want to head to Boise, which was named on Forbes top 10 list of cities where salaries are actually increasing.
13. If you’ve ever wondered where the name Boise comes from, it was adopted after French Canadian fur trappers who set their traps in the woods by the Boise River, which they called “La rivière boisée” and would refer to the trees as “Les bois!”
14. Boise is famous for its Nickelback disdain. Seriously, the Boise Weekly published a piece in 2012 telling readers everything they could buy instead of a concert ticket.
15. Late Boise native Jeret Peterson took home the Olympic silver medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics for freestyle skiing.
16. Bike Magazine has named Boise as the top mountain biking town in the entire country.
17. The founder of the Albertsons chain of grocery stores, Joe Albertsons, lived in Boise with his wife until he passed away in 1993 at the age of 86.
18. That’s right. Outside Magazine gave Boise the title of the #1 Overall Town In The Western U.S., which came as a surprise to exactly no one in Boise.
19. For anyone who is a fan of riding ceramic horses, you might want to keep your habit to yourself since it’s technically illegal to ride on merry-go-round on a Sunday here. Don’t worry, kids (and big kids.) It’s an old law that isn’t enforced.
20. With a population of about 15,000 Basque residents making up the Basque Block section of the city, Boise has the second largest Basque population in the United States.
21. Every five years, Boise’s Basque Block throws a large Basque festival called Jaialdi.
22. Boise girl Brandi Sherwood took the titles of Miss Teen USA in 1989 before being crowned Miss USA in 1997.
23. If we ever do get those hoverboards, Boise will probably get them before most other places. The city was listed in the top 20 most innovative cities by Sunset Magazine.
24. You don’t need to break any laws to get inside the Old Idaho Penitentiary. It is open for tours to the public. But beware, it’s rumored to be crazy haunted.
25. The 1988 film “Moving” by Richard Pryor is also set in Boise, when Pryor’s character finds out he has to relocate to the city for his job. It was also filmed here in order to be able to capture the beauty of Boise.
26. Due to the safe streets, growing economy, and vibrant community, Time Magazine named Boise as the number one city in their article entitled “Solutions for America” claiming that Boise is one of the top cities “getting it right” this year.
27. Co-inventor of the television remote control, Robert Adler, lived many years in Boise until he passed away at the age of 93.
28. Boise’s 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games brought more than 2,500 athletes to the city from almost 100 countries.
29. Next time you have a layover in Boise, you’ll be in luck. In 2005, not even a year after it opened, Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine ranked the Boise Airport as seventh in the world when it comes to passenger satisfaction based on a global survey.
30. The Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise is one of only 11 sites in the country (like the White House and the 9/11 memorial in New York City) that was given a chestnut tree sapling from the tree that stood outside the secret annex in Amsterdam where Frank hid with her family.
31. The Treasure Valley Rollergirls are Boise’s first and only female roller derby team, with members named things like Heapa Trouble and Demolition Barbie.
32. The World’s Largest Potato is an Idaho landmark and somewhat of a celebrity, sitting on the back of a truck and touring the country. But even potatoes need their rest, and this famous spud spends its winters parked in Boise.
33. Boise has a statue of Abraham Lincoln sitting in Julia Davis park. At nine feet tall, sitting on an eleven foot long bench, and weighing about 6,500 pounds, Boise’s big Abe is the third largest seated statue of the former president in the world.
Feature Image Source: Boise State University Facebook
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