Before Fort Hall was established the general location was known as a favorable fur region. Located in a sheltered bend of Snake River near the junction of Blackfoot and Portneuf Rivers with the main stream, "The Bottoms" as the area came to be called, had for perhaps hundreds of years been a favorite gathering and camping place for the
Shoshone-Bannock Indians.

Plentiful game and Fur bearing animals naturally drew white hunters and traders to the area. The earliest white men known to have visited the region were men of the Missouri Fur Company in 1810, and of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company who, under Wilson Price Hunt, passed through in 1811. These were soon followed by trappers and traders operating independently, or as members of the "Horse Brigades" sent out y the North West Company, or Nor'westers, as they were commonly called.

In 1821 the North West Company became part of the great Hudson's Bay Company, who continued to send out the snake county Expeditions until well in the 1830's. During the time of the HBC ("Here Before Christ") operations the "Mountain Men" of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, headquartered in St. Louis were also busy throughout most of the Intermountain Region including the upper reaches of the Snake River country.

In the early 1830's a young businessman of New England named Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth become interested in the trade possibilities of the Pacific Northwest. In 1832 he visited the annual get-together of trappers, traders, and Indians known as the Rendezvous. He participated in the battle of Pierre's Hole. There he made an agreement with representatives of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to bring $3,000 worth of trade goods for them at the 1834 Rendezvous.

This he did, but the company, being in financial difficulties, refused to accept the goods. Wyeth, not seeing any other way open to him, moved on westward with the men and the goods until he reached "The Bottoms" of the Snake River on July 15, 1834. There on the 18th of July he started the construction of a trading post, which he named Fort Hall in honor of the oldest member of the New England company financing his enterprise. On August 4th he finished the log structure. The next morning, August 5, he raised a homemade United States flag, saluted it with a salvo of guns, and thus, as the result of a broken agreement, Fort Hall came into existence, an event whose historical significance ca not be overrated.

On July 27, while Fort Hall was under construction, there occurred the delivery of a sermon by the Reverend Jason Lee, a missionary who was traveling with the Wyeth party on his way to Oregon. This is, so far as we know, the first sermon ever preached in what is now Idaho. The congregation consisted of most of Wyeth's men, a group of Hudson's Bay men temporarily with the Wyeth party, and a large assemblage of Indians, few if any of whom were able to understand Lee's message.

Captain Wyeth started on west on August 6, 1834. At Fort Hall he left Robert Evans in charge, with the following men to assist him in organizing the business and encouraging trapping and trading in the vicinity: Robert Cairnes, Thomas Callahan, John Hynds, John Maxwell, Samuel Nott, William Richmond, Peter Rost, Osborne Russell, Charles Schriver, John Timmer, and John Ward. The presence of several hundred Bannock and Shoshone Indians camped with their families in the general vicinity of the fort seemed a good omen for the future of the post.

But the Hudson's Bay Company had other plans. Thomas McKay, a tried and true HBC man, had traveled for a time with Wyeth and was probably fully aware of Wyeth's plans. Soon a Hudson's Bay party was building a trading post of their own near the junction of Boise River with the Snake. They named the post Fort Boise, and its purpose was simply to drive Fort Hall out of business. This they proposed to do by using the almost limitless resources of the great English company to overbid Wyeth in the payment for furs and underbid him in the sale of goods to the Indians. This policy worked and Wyeth was never able to make a decent profit from the Fort Hall business.

In 1837 Wyeth sold out to the Hudson's Bay Company at a reported loss of about $30,000. The English cornpany's banner replaced the Stars and Stripes at Fort Hall and remained there until the United States gained possession by treaty with England giving us all the Oregon Country south of the forty-ninth parallel in exchange on our part of the Pacific Northwest beyond the 49th parallel all the way north to the southern boundary of territory claimed by Russia.

In 1843, the "Great Migration" to the Willamette Valley of Oregon began. Dr. Marcus Whitman, who had established a mission near Walla Walla, Washington, made a trip to the East and led a train of about 200 wagons, about 875 emigrants, with hundreds of head of livestock, back to Fort Hall. There Captain Grant, the HBC trader in charge, tried in vain to persuade the emigrants to leave their wagons, as had been the usual procedure. Still using their wagons, the emigrants finally reached the Dalles on the Columbia River, and this accomplishment is said to have done more than any other single factor in clinching for the United States ownership of the Oregon Country now included in Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and that portion of Montana and Wyoming west of the Continental Divide.

After 1846 the Hudson's Bay Company began to lose interest, especially when they sometimes lost money. In 1855, largely because of increasing hostility by Indians toward the constantly swelling white tide using the Oregon Trail, the English company decided to abandon both Fort Hall and Fort Boise. This was done in late 1855 and in 1856, most of the valuable items at Fort Hall being transferred to Flathead Post in Montana.

Though still occasionally used, the fur business no longer being worthwhile on a large scale, the old fort fell into disrepair. However, it continued to be used by independent furgatherers such as Jonnie Grant, Jr., Jo Patte, and a few others well into the 1860's. In 1864 the Holladay Stage Lines constructed a stage station a short distance southeast of Fort Hall, much material of the old fort being used in the construction of the stage station on the banks of Spring Creek. This post was also known as Fort Hall, showing that by that time Fort Hall had become a name of regional significance. This wider meaning of the term is clearly shown by the fact that the Indian reservation established in 1868 for the Shoshone, Bannock, and Lemhi Indians was named the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, and the town in which the agency offices are located is also named Fort Hall.

After J.N. Ireland of Malad moved the remnants of the fort to Spring Creek in 1864 to construct Ben Holladay's stage station, the original site soon became lost except to a sprinkling of survivors of the Oregon trail and trapping days. Among these was Joseph Rainey, son of a French-Canadian and a "Sorrell" half-blooded mother. Mr. Rainey for many years was well known as interpreter and scout for the Army and later for the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. Born on the present site of Pocatello, he was a young adult at the time the Fort was moved.

In the early summer of 1906 residents along the Old Oregon Trail in Idaho were surprised to see a covered wagon, complete in every detail -even to the oxen, plodding eastward on the Old Trail. Guiding this outfit was white haired and bearded 75 year old Ezra Meeker, who had in 1852 traveled the trail westward on the way to Oregon. His purpose-to map the old trail, point out the old landmarks remaining, and to create an interest in reestablishing those more historic spots or places destroyed.

In 1906 and 1910 Mr. Meeker had been shown the "Adobes", as the remains of the Ben Holladay stage station on Spring Creek was known at the time. This was actually the materials from the old fort but the wrong location. Mr. Meeker questioned whether this was the original site.

His trip created a great deal of interest and received considerable publicity which was to lead to the mapping and placing of signs along the trail. But it was not until his third trip in 1916 that the site which he considered to be one of the most important landmarks, or places on the trail, was firmly fixed, the original site of the Old Fort Hall.

Assisting Meeker in finding the old site were a dedicated group who wished to keep alive the story of the great trek west, and to tell the story of the vital role that the Fort played during this massive migration. Spearheading this group was a woman noted in many fields of personal endeavor, Dr. Minnie Howard, who was to work hard and try all avenues of approach for more than forty years to restore or rebuild a replica of the Old Fort.

Assisting Meeker in finding the old site were a dedicated group who wished to keep alive the story of the great trek west, and to tell the story of the vital role that the Fort played during this massive migration. Spearheading this group was a woman noted in many fields of personal endeavor, Dr. Minnie Howard, who was to work hard and try all avenues of approach for more than forty years to restore or rebuild a replica of the Old Fort.

Several accounts describe Joe Rainey merely as "an old Indian", without mentioning his name. He died 12 years later. His obituary showed his importance in early day local history as a man trusted by both Indian and white. He was present at the signing of several Indian treaties, and during the Bannock war was instrumental in the rescue of Joe Skelton's freight train from an ambush near Mackay.

It was not until 1962 that the Bannock County Centennial Committee decided as their project celebrate Idaho's 1963 Centennial to pick up the banner so ably carried by Dr. Howard and others, and to again try to build the Old Fort Hall Replica. Mr. Jack Alvord supervised the work of building the replica and remained the Chairman of the Replica Commission until his death in March 1980. Jack and his wife Laura were dedicated in the building construction and gathering artifacts for the Replica displays.

Due to the impossible situation of acquiring or rebuilding on the original site, it was decided to build the Replica' on the upper level of Ross Park, so that it would be maintained and managed by the Pocatello Parks and Recreation Department.

All available copies of the Old Fort history were studied, and a complete set of plans were received from the Hudson's Bay Company showing the original layout of the Old Fort as constituted during their occupation of some 22 years.