Forgotten Tales of Idaho by Andy Weeks

Author:Andy Weeks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2015-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FORT HALL

No one knows for sure, but it’s been estimated that more than 100,000 people traveled America’s overland route, the Oregon Trail, between 1841 and 1869. The 2,100-plus-mile route started in Missouri and stretched to the Pacific Northwest. Emigrants fleeing their old lives in the Midwest embarked on the trail in search of new lives in the West. Most went to Oregon, but some parties broke off from the main trail stem to head to other points west, such as Utah or California.

One popular stopping point along the way, as recorded in my book Haunted Idaho, was Fort Hall, located in Bannock County in southeast Idaho. It was established in 1864 by the Fort Bridger Treaty between the United States and Shoshone-Bannock tribes in the wake of the 1863 Bear River Massacre. In that bloody conflict, more than four hundred Indians were killed by army soldiers. It was a sad day in the history of the United States and Idaho, but the tragedy was the culmination of a long, continuing struggle between Indians and the white man.

In the 1850s, for instance, Chief Pocatello commanded attacks on emigrant parties, in part, because they were encroaching on their hunting grounds. Things never quieted down between the factions, and in 1863, U.S. Army colonel Patrick Edward Connor led his troops from Fort Douglas, Utah, to Fort Hall to “chastise” the Shoshone. Pocatello, however, was warned of Conner’s plans and led his people out of harm’s way, resulting in the attack on another band. Pocatello subsequently sued for peace and agreed to relocate his people to the newly established reservation along the Snake River.

Four bands of Shoshone and the Bannock band of the Paiute relocated to the reservation, then consisting of 1.8 million acres of land. The U.S. government agreed to supply the Shoshone-Bannock annually with goods and supplies annuities worth $5,000.

From 1868 to 1932, the reservation territory was reduced by two-thirds due to encroachment of nonnative settlers and governmental actions to take land. In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, created in part to end the allotment process, encourage tribes to reestablish self-government and to keep their land bases. In 1936, the tribes reorganized, wrote a constitution and established their own elected government.

Before it became a reservation, Fort Hall was a furtrading station that Captain Nathaniel Wyeth established in 1834. His business was short-lived, however, at least under his ownership. He sold it a year later before returning to the East.

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