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Archie Teater (Tap to read)

5/2/2023

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Frank Lloyd Wright designed only one home and studio for another artist. Can you guess where it is? Yes, it’s a fair bet the home is in Idaho, given the state-shaped geographical boundaries of this history series. But where in Idaho? Pssst! Say, Hagerman.
 
Wright designed a home for Archie and Patricia Teater to be built near Hagerman in 1952. The house is perched above the Snake River just north of town. The site is called Teater’s Knoll. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. The house is privately owned but occasionally opened for special events. A couple of books are available about the house, Teater’s Knoll: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Idaho Legacy and At Nature’s Edge: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Artist Studio.
 
But who was Teater? Born in 1901 in Boise, Archie Boyd Teater was a plein-air landscape artist who painted mostly Western scenes. His oils were displayed alongside Frederick Remington, Charles Russell, Thomas Moran, and Thomas Hart Benton. In his youth, he worked alongside miners, trappers, and lumberjacks who probably cared little for Teater’s passion for painting, which would draw him away for days into the mountains, where he would lose himself in the grandeur he meant to capture.
 
The Teater paintings below are owned by the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation and are on display at agency headquarters in Boise. The top painting is a view of Ritter Island, now a state park unit, from the cliffs above the island. On the bottom is a depiction of what Thousand Springs once looked like from the island itself. A power-generating structure now captures most of the flow of the springs and their once splendid beauty.

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    The first book in the Speaking of Idaho series is out. Ask for it at your local Idaho bookstore, find it on Amazon, or, if you want a signed copy, click the button.
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    The second book in the Speaking of Idaho series is out. Ask for it at your local Idaho bookstore, find it on Amazon, or, if you want a signed copy, click the button.
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    Author, Speaker

    Rick Just has been writing about Idaho history since 1989 when he wrote and recorded scripts for the Idaho Centennial Commission’s daily radio program, Idaho Snapshots. One of his Idaho books explores the history of Idaho's state parks: Images of America, Idaho State Parks. Rick also writes a regular column for Boise Weekly.

    Rick does public presentations on Idaho's state park history and the history of the Morrisite war for the Idaho Humanities Council's Speakers Bureau.idahohumanities.org/programs/inquiring-idaho/
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    Check out Rick's history of Idaho State Parks.

    The audio link below is to Rick's Story Story Night set called "Someplace Not Firth"

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