01Summary
A trading post built in 1834 by Boston trader Nathaniel Wyeth on the Snake River and sold to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1837. Emigrants depended on it for supplies before the long trek across southern Idaho.
02History
Nathaniel Wyeth built Fort Hall in the summer of 1834 on the Snake River, northwest of present-day Pocatello, Idaho, and named it for Henry Hall, one of his backers. He could not compete with the Hudson's Bay Company, and in 1837 he sold the post to the British firm.
From the early 1840s large numbers of emigrants depended on the fort for supplies, and many traded their worn-out cattle for fresh ones from its herds. A few earlier parties had left their wagons here. In 1843 Peter Burnett asked the trader in charge, Mr. Grant, whether wagons could go on to Oregon. Grant would not call it impossible, but said he 'could not himself see how it could be done.' Marcus Whitman assured the emigrants they could succeed, and the Great Migration took its wagons on.
West of the fort, at the Raft River, California-bound wagons turned southwest, and from 1849 many took Hudspeth's Cutoff from Soda Springs and never came to the fort at all. The Hudson's Bay Company gave up the post in 1856, and floods later washed away what was left. The Army's Fort Hall of 1870, about 25 miles to the northeast, was a separate post.
03Today
The site of the original fort, a National Historic Landmark, lies on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, and no buildings remain. A replica of the fort, built in the 1960s, is open as a museum in Pocatello.
04People connected here
05Stops nearby
The Oregon Trail ran about 2,170 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City. The stops just before and after this one are below. You can also find Fort Hall on the interactive map.