Fort Hall
Encyclopedia
Fort Hall, sitting athwart the end of the common stretch shared by the three far west
emigrant trail
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
.
Fort Hall, sitting athwart the end of the common stretch shared by the three far west
emigrant trail
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
.
Fort Hall, sitting athwart the end of the common stretch shared by the three far west
emigrant trail
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
. Fort Hall was constructed as a commercial venture, situated on the Snake River
north of present-day Pocatello
, Idaho
. It became an important stop in the 1840s and 1850s for an estimated 270,000 emigrants along the Oregon Trail
and California Trail
, which diverged west of the fort.
−fur trapper
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth
and 70 other men when they heard about the South Pass route to the Oregon Country, and knew the route connected to Oregon places and trails they already knew well. In the aftermath of the Rendezvous of 1832, trappers dodging south of any possible Amerindian war parties via an easy to negotiate series of valleys accidentally discovered Pacific Springs, Wyoming and the South Pass
leading back to the North Platte River
valleythe key element in connecting the east by a wagon road to the rich pickings in the Oregon Country
. The Platte Rivers were well known and traveled, the road used for the first 500 miles from the Missouri River fur ports at Independence
and St. Joseph, Missouri, or the money men and field bosses at Saint Louis
..!
The previously used common route (An Amerindian trail first used by white men as part of Lewis and Clark's trip in 1803-1806) into Oregon. Because of the frequent obstacles, ones requiring extra "mule skinners" running the mules which couldn't be rigged into long strings of tens of animals placidly following one after another, but had to keep short strings for the frequent turns and switchbacks needed drovers to space the costly animals.
They planned to journey to a pre-scheduled trappers' rendezvous (Rendezvous of 1833) at a meadow around Hams Fork, (near present day Granger, WY) where they would sell goods to mountain men and fur trappers. They planned to use the profits from the rendezvous to establish a fishery on the Columbia River
, exporting salmon
to New England
and Hawaii
. The Columbia River post was the short-lived Fort William
.
As a back-up plan, they traveled west in the fall of 1833 some hundreds of miles to the Snake
near the mouth of the Portneuf
and constructed the wooden storehouses at Fort Hall preparing to winter in the mountains and to sell off their excess goods. Wyeth named the fort after a major investor in the enterprise, Henry Hall, a partner of the Boston firm Tucker & Williams & Henry Hall. Unsurprisingly, Hall never left the comforts of civilized Boston and traveled west to the hard frontier. The fort was palisaded and completed on July 31, 1834, the only U.S. outpost in the Oregon Country at that time. Because of the Oregon boundary dispute
, the region was open to settlement and economic activity, but not any formal claim, by both the United States and Great Britain. In practice, the Hudson's Bay Company maintained an effective monopoly on all trade in the region, resorting to dirty tricks to shut out the independent trapper-trader mountain men and cutting severely into the profit margins of the larger American overland fur trading companiesmostly organized in Saint Louisand regularly together with other big outfits, providing so much competition that new companies regularly failed in their first half decade.
on his way to start the Methodist Mission
at Fort Walla Walla
on the Columbia River
. Once Wyeth reached the lower Columbia he built Fort William
to serve as the 'envisioned' regular rendezvous point on the Columbia.
online at Google Books
Ironically, furs were already becoming scarce due to over trapping and exploitation, so Wyeth's efforts were already doomed to fail.
(HBC), which controlled most of the fur trade in the Oregon Country (known to them as the Columbia District
or the Columbia Department) from their headquarters at Fort Vancouver
on the Columbia. Emigrants who arrived at the fort were shown the abandoned wagons of those who had come before them and who had continued westward with their animals on foot. The British didn't want American pioneers in Oregon, so, under British rule, Fort Hall actively discouraged pioneers. Asahel Munger, a missionary in Idaho and Oregon in 1839, found few supplies at Fort Hall.
Other major trapper-traders company agents like William Sublette
who established Fort William (in 1833, 1838 renamed Fort John, then Fort Laramie in c. 1850) at the foot of the trail leading to the South Pass at the confluence of the Laramie River
with the North Platte
had opined in correspondence 'the fur trade in the Columbia Basin wasn't what it used to be, the best areas were gone and the business was headed for hard times' (paraphrased).
, a missionary
who had established a mission near present-day Walla Walla, Washington
, led a wagon train westward from the fort, despite pressures from the British. His reports, when received back east amidst the country-wide expansionist mindset of true believers in Manifest Destiny
started a growing flood of settlers increasing in numbers year by year, and all were reinforced by the Presidential politics with slogan's like "Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight"the battle cry of Democrats demanding a settlement of the Oregon Question far north of today's border between the United States and Canada. The election years slogan's and bad press, Democratic hawks controlling the U.S. legislatures, the failing fur market demand, and finally the declaration of war by Mexico over the annexation of their rebel state of Texas all had an accelerating effect greasing the diplomatic wrangling and finally putting an Administration Sponsored treaty before the Senate which set the current boundary, where it was quickly adopted under the wartime congressional session. No one saw any reason to embarrass their own parties President and fighting two wars in widely different theaters was nonsensical. The treaty triggered an explosion of settlers heading west in 1846 and the Mormon Exodus had already begun in Illinois and Missouri. Now the Army would send patrols and safeguard the road.
In the following years the number of wagon trains grew sharply and the fort became a welcome stop along the trail for thousands of emigrants. It also remained an important trading post for mountain men and the Native Americans
of the region, in particular the Shoshone
.
In 1846, following the Oregon Treaty
, Fort Hall fell within the boundaries of the United States. From 1849 to 1850, a Federal military camp, Cantonment Loring, was located three miles downriver from Fort Hall. It was intended to protect the Oregon Trail, but was abandoned due to supply difficulties. Instead expeditions to guard the trail (and receiving supplies by sea and the fertile farms of the rapidly growing Williamette Valley) were dispatched from Oregon to Fort Hall during each summer after 1855.
. Flood waters washed away the Old Fort Hall in 1863. Fort Hall was rebuilt in 1864, on Spring Creek just north of the original Fort Hall. Remnants of the old fort were used to construct this fortified stage station. The following year, the site was abandoned and the Volunteer troops moved to Camp Lander until 1866. It was located three miles southeast of the original Fort Hall, at the junction of the Salt Lake and Boise Roads.
A replica the original Fort Hall was constructed in the 1960s in Pocatello and is now operated as a public museum. The original site is located 11 miles west of the town of Fort Hall
in the Fort Hall Indian Reservation
.
and other travelers. After it was abandoned on June 11, 1883, the barracks were turned over to the Indian Service and used as an Indian school. The buildings were eventually relocated to Ross Fork Creek.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark
in 1961.
Far West
Far West most frequently refers to the American Old West.Far West may also refer to:* "Far West", a common colloquial term for a distinct area of the far Western United States* Far West, Missouri...
emigrant trail
Emigrant Trail
The Emigrant Trails were the northern networks of overland wagon trails throughout the American West, used by emigrants from the eastern United States to settle lands west of the Interior Plains during the overland migrations of the mid-19th century...
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall is a census-designated place in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho, split between northern Bannock County and southern Bingham County. It is located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Snake River north of Pocatello, near the site of the original Fort Hall in the...
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region...
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
.
Fort Hall, sitting athwart the end of the common stretch shared by the three far west
Far West
Far West most frequently refers to the American Old West.Far West may also refer to:* "Far West", a common colloquial term for a distinct area of the far Western United States* Far West, Missouri...
emigrant trail
Emigrant Trail
The Emigrant Trails were the northern networks of overland wagon trails throughout the American West, used by emigrants from the eastern United States to settle lands west of the Interior Plains during the overland migrations of the mid-19th century...
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall is a census-designated place in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho, split between northern Bannock County and southern Bingham County. It is located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Snake River north of Pocatello, near the site of the original Fort Hall in the...
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region...
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
.
Fort Hall, sitting athwart the end of the common stretch shared by the three far west
Far West
Far West most frequently refers to the American Old West.Far West may also refer to:* "Far West", a common colloquial term for a distinct area of the far Western United States* Far West, Missouri...
emigrant trail
Emigrant Trail
The Emigrant Trails were the northern networks of overland wagon trails throughout the American West, used by emigrants from the eastern United States to settle lands west of the Interior Plains during the overland migrations of the mid-19th century...
s was a 19th century outpost in the eastern Oregon Country
Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...
, which eventually became part of the present-day United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and is located in southeastern Idaho near Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall is a census-designated place in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho, split between northern Bannock County and southern Bingham County. It is located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Snake River north of Pocatello, near the site of the original Fort Hall in the...
. Though now well in the United States, it was once taken over and operated during the Oregon boundary dispute
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region...
by the British Hudson's Bay Company
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
. Fort Hall was constructed as a commercial venture, situated on the Snake River
Snake River
The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...
north of present-day Pocatello
Pocatello, Idaho
Pocatello is the county seat and largest city of Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock...
, Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
. It became an important stop in the 1840s and 1850s for an estimated 270,000 emigrants along the Oregon Trail
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail is a historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.After 1840 steam-powered riverboats and steamboats traversing up and down the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers sped settlement and development in the flat...
and California Trail
California Trail
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California...
, which diverged west of the fort.
Prelude, the Fur Trade
The idea for the fort arose in 1832, as a business venture conceived by Mountain manMountain man
Mountain men were trappers and explorers who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through the 1880s where they were instrumental in opening up the various Emigrant Trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains...
−fur trapper
Fur trade
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was an American inventor, ice harvester, and explorer and trader in the far west.-Early life:Wyeth was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Jacob and Elizabeth Wyeth...
and 70 other men when they heard about the South Pass route to the Oregon Country, and knew the route connected to Oregon places and trails they already knew well. In the aftermath of the Rendezvous of 1832, trappers dodging south of any possible Amerindian war parties via an easy to negotiate series of valleys accidentally discovered Pacific Springs, Wyoming and the South Pass
South Pass
South Pass is two mountain passes on the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. The passes are located in a broad low region, 35 miles broad, between the Wind River Range to the north and the Oregon Buttes and Great Divide Basin to the south, in southwestern Fremont...
leading back to the North Platte River
North Platte River
The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long counting its many curves, It travels about distance. Its course lies in the U.S...
valleythe key element in connecting the east by a wagon road to the rich pickings in the Oregon Country
Oregon Country
The Oregon Country was a predominantly American term referring to a disputed ownership region of the Pacific Northwest of North America. The region was occupied by British and French Canadian fur traders from before 1810, and American settlers from the mid-1830s, with its coastal areas north from...
. The Platte Rivers were well known and traveled, the road used for the first 500 miles from the Missouri River fur ports at Independence
Independence, Missouri
Independence is the fourth largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri, and is contained within the counties of Jackson and Clay. It is part of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area...
and St. Joseph, Missouri, or the money men and field bosses at Saint Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
..!
The previously used common route (An Amerindian trail first used by white men as part of Lewis and Clark's trip in 1803-1806) into Oregon. Because of the frequent obstacles, ones requiring extra "mule skinners" running the mules which couldn't be rigged into long strings of tens of animals placidly following one after another, but had to keep short strings for the frequent turns and switchbacks needed drovers to space the costly animals.
They planned to journey to a pre-scheduled trappers' rendezvous (Rendezvous of 1833) at a meadow around Hams Fork, (near present day Granger, WY) where they would sell goods to mountain men and fur trappers. They planned to use the profits from the rendezvous to establish a fishery on the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
, exporting salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
to New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
and Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
. The Columbia River post was the short-lived Fort William
Fort William (Oregon)
Fort William was a fur trading outpost built by American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth in 1834. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island in what is now part of Portland, Oregon. It was the site of a murder and the first Euro-American trial in what is now the state of Oregon...
.
Old Fort Hall (1834-1856)
The business venture proved to be troublesome. After arriving at the rendezvous, Wyeth and his men found that their goods sold poorly, and the competition from the large fur companies was significant, depressing their net profits to disappointing levels and sticking them with a costly investment now as unsold stock. The big fur companies sponsored and sent platoons or companies of men annually with a hierarchy of managing company agents organizing the fair-like rendezvous.As a back-up plan, they traveled west in the fall of 1833 some hundreds of miles to the Snake
Snake River
The Snake is a major river of the greater Pacific Northwest in the United States. At long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...
near the mouth of the Portneuf
Portneuf River (Idaho)
The Portneuf River is a tributary of the Snake River in southeastern Idaho in the United States. It drains a ranching and farming valley in the mountains southeast of the Snake River Plain...
and constructed the wooden storehouses at Fort Hall preparing to winter in the mountains and to sell off their excess goods. Wyeth named the fort after a major investor in the enterprise, Henry Hall, a partner of the Boston firm Tucker & Williams & Henry Hall. Unsurprisingly, Hall never left the comforts of civilized Boston and traveled west to the hard frontier. The fort was palisaded and completed on July 31, 1834, the only U.S. outpost in the Oregon Country at that time. Because of the Oregon boundary dispute
Oregon boundary dispute
The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom and the United States had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region...
, the region was open to settlement and economic activity, but not any formal claim, by both the United States and Great Britain. In practice, the Hudson's Bay Company maintained an effective monopoly on all trade in the region, resorting to dirty tricks to shut out the independent trapper-trader mountain men and cutting severely into the profit margins of the larger American overland fur trading companiesmostly organized in Saint Louisand regularly together with other big outfits, providing so much competition that new companies regularly failed in their first half decade.
Wyeth and the Columbia
When Fort Hall was completed, Wyeth continued toward the Columbia River with other members of his company. They encountered Methodist missionary Jason LeeJason Lee (missionary)
Jason Lee , an American missionary and pioneer, was born on a farm near Stanstead, Quebec. He was the first of the Oregon missionaries and helped establish the early foundation of a provisional government in the Oregon Country....
on his way to start the Methodist Mission
Methodist Mission
The Methodist Mission was founded in Oregon Country in 1834 by the Reverend Jason Lee. The mission was started to educate the Native Americans in the Willamette Valley and grew into an important center for politics and economics in the early settlement period of Oregon.-Foundation:In 1831, several...
at Fort Walla Walla
Fort Walla Walla
Fort Walla Walla is a fort located in Walla Walla, Washington. It was established in 1858. Today, the complex contains a park, a museum, and a hospital.Fort Walla Walla should be distinguished from Fort Nez Percés or Old Fort Walla Walla ....
on the Columbia River
Columbia River
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...
. Once Wyeth reached the lower Columbia he built Fort William
Fort William (Oregon)
Fort William was a fur trading outpost built by American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth in 1834. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island in what is now part of Portland, Oregon. It was the site of a murder and the first Euro-American trial in what is now the state of Oregon...
to serve as the 'envisioned' regular rendezvous point on the Columbia.
online at Google Books
Ironically, furs were already becoming scarce due to over trapping and exploitation, so Wyeth's efforts were already doomed to fail.
Old Fort Hall 1837-1846
In August 1837 Wyeth sold the fort to the Hudson's Bay CompanyHudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...
(HBC), which controlled most of the fur trade in the Oregon Country (known to them as the Columbia District
Columbia District
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811, and established as an operating fur district around 1810...
or the Columbia Department) from their headquarters at Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver
Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District...
on the Columbia. Emigrants who arrived at the fort were shown the abandoned wagons of those who had come before them and who had continued westward with their animals on foot. The British didn't want American pioneers in Oregon, so, under British rule, Fort Hall actively discouraged pioneers. Asahel Munger, a missionary in Idaho and Oregon in 1839, found few supplies at Fort Hall.
Other major trapper-traders company agents like William Sublette
William Sublette
William Lewis Sublette Born near Stamford, Lincoln County, Kentucky on September 21, 1798. Died on July 23, 1845 in Pittsburg. W.L. Sublette was a fur trapper, pioneer and mountain man, who with his brothers after 1823 became an agent of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company exploiting the riches of the...
who established Fort William (in 1833, 1838 renamed Fort John, then Fort Laramie in c. 1850) at the foot of the trail leading to the South Pass at the confluence of the Laramie River
Laramie River
The Laramie River is a tributary of the North Platte River, approximately long, in the U.S. states of Colorado and Wyoming.It rises in northern Colorado, in the Roosevelt National Forest in the Front Range, in western Larimer County...
with the North Platte
North Platte River
The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long counting its many curves, It travels about distance. Its course lies in the U.S...
had opined in correspondence 'the fur trade in the Columbia Basin wasn't what it used to be, the best areas were gone and the business was headed for hard times' (paraphrased).
The Oregon Migration begins in earnest
In 1843, Dr. Marcus WhitmanMarcus Whitman
Marcus Whitman was an American physician and Oregon missionary in the Oregon Country. Along with his wife Narcissa Whitman he started a mission in what is now southeastern Washington state in 1836, which would later become a stop along the Oregon Trail...
, a missionary
Oregon missionaries
The Oregon missionaries were collectively the religious-minded pioneers who settled in the Oregon Country of North America starting in the 1830s with the intent of converting local Native Americans to Christianity...
who had established a mission near present-day Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla, Washington
Walla Walla is the largest city in and the county seat of Walla Walla County, Washington, United States. The population was 31,731 at the 2010 census...
, led a wagon train westward from the fort, despite pressures from the British. His reports, when received back east amidst the country-wide expansionist mindset of true believers in Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
started a growing flood of settlers increasing in numbers year by year, and all were reinforced by the Presidential politics with slogan's like "Fifty-Four-Forty or Fight"the battle cry of Democrats demanding a settlement of the Oregon Question far north of today's border between the United States and Canada. The election years slogan's and bad press, Democratic hawks controlling the U.S. legislatures, the failing fur market demand, and finally the declaration of war by Mexico over the annexation of their rebel state of Texas all had an accelerating effect greasing the diplomatic wrangling and finally putting an Administration Sponsored treaty before the Senate which set the current boundary, where it was quickly adopted under the wartime congressional session. No one saw any reason to embarrass their own parties President and fighting two wars in widely different theaters was nonsensical. The treaty triggered an explosion of settlers heading west in 1846 and the Mormon Exodus had already begun in Illinois and Missouri. Now the Army would send patrols and safeguard the road.
In the following years the number of wagon trains grew sharply and the fort became a welcome stop along the trail for thousands of emigrants. It also remained an important trading post for mountain men and the Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
of the region, in particular the Shoshone
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern....
.
In 1846, following the Oregon Treaty
Oregon Treaty
The Oregon Treaty is a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United States that was signed on June 15, 1846, in Washington, D.C. The treaty brought an end to the Oregon boundary dispute by settling competing American and British claims to the Oregon Country, which had been jointly occupied by...
, Fort Hall fell within the boundaries of the United States. From 1849 to 1850, a Federal military camp, Cantonment Loring, was located three miles downriver from Fort Hall. It was intended to protect the Oregon Trail, but was abandoned due to supply difficulties. Instead expeditions to guard the trail (and receiving supplies by sea and the fertile farms of the rapidly growing Williamette Valley) were dispatched from Oregon to Fort Hall during each summer after 1855.
Civil War 1863-1866
Abandoned, and later occupied briefly by the Volunteer soldiers of the Union ArmyUnion Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
. Flood waters washed away the Old Fort Hall in 1863. Fort Hall was rebuilt in 1864, on Spring Creek just north of the original Fort Hall. Remnants of the old fort were used to construct this fortified stage station. The following year, the site was abandoned and the Volunteer troops moved to Camp Lander until 1866. It was located three miles southeast of the original Fort Hall, at the junction of the Salt Lake and Boise Roads.
A replica the original Fort Hall was constructed in the 1960s in Pocatello and is now operated as a public museum. The original site is located 11 miles west of the town of Fort Hall
Fort Hall, Idaho
Fort Hall is a census-designated place in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho, split between northern Bannock County and southern Bingham County. It is located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Snake River north of Pocatello, near the site of the original Fort Hall in the...
in the Fort Hall Indian Reservation
Fort Hall Indian Reservation
The Fort Hall Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation of the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in the U.S. state of Idaho. It is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain north of Pocatello, and comprises 814.874 sq mi of land area in four counties: Bingham, Power,...
.
New Fort Hall
On May 27, 1870, another military Fort Hall was erected on Lincoln Creek, 12 miles east of the Snake River and about 25 miles northeast of the old Fort Hall. Captain James Edward Putnam and a company of U.S. Army soldiers built the new Fort Hall in 1870. Army soldiers stationed there were assigned to protect stagecoachStagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
and other travelers. After it was abandoned on June 11, 1883, the barracks were turned over to the Indian Service and used as an Indian school. The buildings were eventually relocated to Ross Fork Creek.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1961.
External links
- Idaho State University: Fort Hall
- Idaho History: Fort Hall Site
- Fort Hall Replica official site
- Fort Hall Accounts