Happy New Year’s Day!

Why not kick off 2022 with a New Look at Old Middleton? This will also be in the January copy of the Middleton Gazette.

Middleton Lakes subdivision, on the south side of Middleton, is now home to hundreds of families, neatly tended yards and walking paths, and the recently-completed bypass. But it hasn’t always been a busy neighborhood. It was about twenty-five years ago that this parcel of land was incorporated into Middleton City limits. To learn about this land prior to that time, we look back at an article from the May 1994, Middleton Gazette. Here is what editor Becky Foote had to say then.

Old Rutledge Place’Embodies History:
“Middleton’s newly-annexed parcel of ground—located between the south side of town and the Boise River—has been in the center of the town’s history since the earliest days. As the first homestead on the west side of the [original] Middleton townsite (c. 1863) the land was granted to Jacob Plowed about 1871. He sold it to Milton McIntyre in 1882, who farmed it for the next 29 years.

In 1911, when Ed and Lovie Rutledge came here from Long Valley and bought the land from McIntyre, an era began which fixed the ranch in everyone’s mind as “the Rutledge place.” Grandchildren Glenn Rutledge of Middleton and Ann Rutledge of Portland recall that the original house had a music room, a bathroom with just a bathtub and no stool, and dormitory-style bedrooms upstairs. Because of the proximity of the house to Middleton, young family members often invited friends to spend the night after a dance (since it was too far to drive home via horse and buggy). Mrs. Rutledge used to say she never knew how many she would have for breakfast, but she always prepared plenty of biscuits, gravy, and oatmeal. The house later was turned into a milk barn located north of the silo. During his 36 years of ownership, Ed Rutledge also built a big red horse barn and corral.

The farm was sold within a year of Rutledge’s death in January 1947, to Fentress and Mary Kuhn. (They were New York natives who also owned Bogus Basin, which they leased for 99 years to the Forest Service.)

In 1959, U. D. And Delores Asumendi bought the property and operated a dairy farm for the ensuing 10 years.

Then it sold to Eldon and June Whiteley. Mrs. Whiteley is still the deeded owner, according to the Canyon County Assessor’s Office.

John Clark farmed the land in the 1980s.

In 1992, Martin and Lainey Zehr purchased the property on contract from Lou Stanley.”

From homestead to a ranch to a dairy farm, the Middleton Lakes land was once wide-open fields. Today, open spaces have given way to fenced yards and paved roads, allowing many families to call “the Rutledge place” home.”

• Dennis and Claudia Moberly

(Aerial view of the “Old Rutledge Place” around 1959 when U. D. and Delores Asumendi owned the property. Photo provided by Mary Jo Asumendi Larzelier.)