Fort Boise is either of two different locations in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement i ...

, both in southwestern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

. The first was a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

(HBC) trading post near the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States. About long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, which is the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. Begin ...

on what is now the

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

border (in present-day Canyon County, Idaho), dating from the era when Idaho was included in the British fur company's

Columbia District The Columbia District was a fur-trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, in both the United States and British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the temporarily jointly occupi ...

. After several rebuilds, the fort was ultimately abandoned in 1854, after it had become part of United States territory following settlement in 1846 of the northern boundary dispute. The second was established by the

US government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, execut ...

in 1863 as a military post located to the east up the

Boise River The Boise River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. , accessed May 3, 2011 tributary of the Snake River in the Northwestern United States. It drains a rugged portion of the Sawtooth Range in so ...

. It developed as Boise, which became the capital city of Idaho.

Old Fort Boise (1834–1854)

The overland Astor Expedition are believed to have been the first

European Americans European Americans are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes both people who descend from the first European settlers in the area of the present-day United States and people who descend from more recent European arrivals. Since th ...

to explore the future site of the first Fort Boise while searching for a suitable location for a

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

post in 1811. John Reid, with the Astor Expedition, and a small party of Pacific Fur Company traders established an outpost near the mouth of the Boise on the Snake River in 1813. Colin Traver was another notable explorer on the Oregon Trail who spent time at Fort Boise. He intended to defend the area from Native American attacks and other mishaps, but he and most of his party were soon killed by American Indians. Marie Dorion, the wife of one those killed, and her two children, escaped and traveled more than 200 miles in deep snow to reach friendly Walla Walla Indians on the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

. On an 1818 map, the explorer and mapmaker David Thompson of the

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

(NWC) called the Boise, "Reid's River," and the outpost, "Reid's Fort". Donald Mackenzie, formerly with the Astor Expedition and representing the

, established a post in 1819 at the same site. It was also abandoned because of Indian hostilities. In the fall of 1834, Thomas McKay, a veteran leader of the annual

(HBC) Snake Country brigades,Dr. John McLoughlin
''A Place Called Oregon'' built Fort Boise, selecting the same location as Reid and Mackenzie. Although McKay had retired in 1833, the HBC Chief Factor John McLoughlin sent him to establish Fort Boise in 1834 to challenge the newly built American Fort Hall further east on the Snake River. McKay was the stepson of McLoughlin. Fort Hall was located about to the east, about north of the location of present-day Pocatello. It was built by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's American Trading Company. In July 1834, Thomas McKay's Snake Country brigade was trapping far to the east and met the party sent by Wyeth to select a site and build Fort Hall. At the end of July, McKay departed for

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th-century fur trading post built in the winter of 1824–1825. It was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was ...

. online a
Google Books
/ref> Although Fort Boise may technically have been built as a private venture of Thomas McKay, it was fully backed and supported by McLoughlin and the HBC.Reference Series: "Fur Trade Posts in Idaho"
, Idaho State Historical Society The contest over the Snake Country ended with Wyeth's vacating the region in 1836–1837. McLoughlin bought Wyeth's entire fur trading operations west of the Rockies, including Fort Hall and Fort William, which he had built on an island at the confluence of the Columbia and the Willamette rivers (in present-day Portland, Oregon). online a
Google Books
/ref> The HBC also took full control of Fort Boise in 1836. The Hudson's Bay Company operated Fort Boise until its abandonment. From 1835 to 1844, the fort was headed by the

French Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French people, French colonists first arriving in Canada (New France), France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of ...

Francois Payette. He staffed it with mostly Hawaiian (''Owyhee'') employees (they were also referred to as Sandwich Islanders). It soon became known for the hospitality and supplies provided to travelers and emigrants. In 1838, Payette constructed a second Fort Boise near the confluence of the

and

about northwest of the present town of

Parma, Idaho Parma is a city in Canyon County, Idaho, United States. The population was 1,983 at the 2010 census, up from 1,771 in 2000. It is the fourth largest city in the county (behind Middleton, Caldwell, and Nampa all in the county’s eastern po ...

and south of Nyssa, Oregon.Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series: Location of Old Fort Boise, 1834–1854
, Idaho State Historical Society The second Fort Boise was built in the form of a parallelogram one hundred feet per side, surrounded with a stockade of poles fifteen feet high. Later the logs were covered and replaced with sun-dried adobe bricks. In 1846, it had two tilled acres, twenty-seven cattle, and seventeen horses. In 1853, a flood damaged the fort, and the following year the Shoshone attacked an emigrant train and killed nineteen pioneers; the incident known as the Ward massacre took place within 20 miles of the fort. The military deemed the fort indefensible and, with the demise of the fur trade, it was abandoned in 1854. Traders took stock and goods to Flathead country. In 1866, the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company constructed and launched the ''

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

'', a sternwheeler, at the old Fort Boise location. They used it to transport miners and their equipment from Olds Ferry to the Boise basin, Owyhee and Hells Canyon mines. When the venture failed, the ship was taken down the

to Hells Canyon. Badly damaged when it reached Lewiston, it was repaired and used for several years' operating on the lower

.
Buckendorf, Bauer, and Jacox, "Non-Native Exploration, Settlement, and Land Use of the Greater Hells Canyon Area, 1800s to 1950s"(p23), Technical Report Appendix E.4.11, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Re-licensing application, Idaho Power Company, 2003 The site of Old Fort Boise is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

; it is within the Fort Boise Wildlife Management Area. A reconstructed replica of the fort in the town of Parma is open to the public by appointment with the city office.

New Fort Boise (1863–1912)

On July 4, 1863, the Union Army founded a new Fort Boise during the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. (Brevet) Major Pinkney Lugenbeel was dispatched from

Washington Territory The Washington Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

to head east and select the site in the Idaho Territory, announced the same day by Territorial Governor William Wallace at the first Idaho capital in Lewiston. The new location was to the east of the old Hudson's Bay Company fort, up the

at the site that would develop as the city of Boise. The new military post was constructed because of massacres on the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

after the old fort was abandoned. The new fort was near the intersection of the Oregon Trail and the roads connecting the Owyhee ( Silver City) and Boise Basin ( Idaho City) mining areas, both booming at the time. The fort's site had the necessary combination of grass, water, wood, and stone. With three companies of infantry and one of cavalry, Major Lugenbeel set to work building quarters for five companies. They built a mule-driven sawmill on Cottonwood Creek, got a lime kiln underway, and opened a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

quarry at the small

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge, or hill, bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and standing distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks, such as shales, capped by a ...

known as Table Rock. Lugenbeel's greatest problem was the lure of the Boise Basin mines – more than 50 men deserted within the first few months.Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series: Fort Boise – (United States Army)
, Idaho State Historical Society Other names for the fort were the Boise Barracks and Camp Boise. After 49 years at the fort, the US Army left the site in 1912. The

National Guard National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. ...

occupied it until 1919, when the

Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The Assistant Se ...

obtained it for a center for veterans of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

patients. The foothills above Ft. Boise were used for gunnery practice. During rehab efforts following the Foothills Fire in 1997, firefighters found several unexploded artillery shells and other ordnance.

Post 1938

In 1938, the

Veterans Administration The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing lifelong healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers an ...

acquired the site. Its successor, the DVA, operates the Boise VA Medical Center. In 1957, the Idaho

Elks The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset (ELKS), formerly known as Linux-8086, is a Linux-like operating system kernel. It is a subset of the Linux kernel, intended for 16-bit computers with limited processor and memory resources such as machines pow ...

Rehabilitation Hospital was built on a portion of the old fort's land. The Federal Building (and US Court House), built in 1968, also occupies a section of the site. It was renamed for former US senator Jim McClure in December 2001.

Fort Boise Park

The City of Boise acquired a portion of the site in 1950 from the federal government after the Defense Department declared it surplus. Fort Boise Park was originally in the old fort's southern corner, but in 1956, several acres were traded to the Idaho

organization (for their new hospital) in exchange for a site of approximately the same size of State Street. The site is currently about in size. Fort Boise Park has a community center, six lighted tennis courts, three lighted softball fields, and a regulation lighted baseball diamond (for Boise High School and

American Legion The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is an Voluntary association, organization of United States, U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It comprises U.S. state, state, Territories of the United States, U.S. terr ...

league play only). A skateboard park is located in the northwest corner of the park. It is below ground with transition walls varying in height from . The final " wild west show" scene of the

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Ma ...

movie '' Bronco Billy'' was filmed in Fort Boise Park in October 1979.

References

External links

Idaho Historical Society

National Park Service
Fort Boise Park
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906034400/http://www.cityofboise.org/Departments/Parks/ParksAndFacilities/Parks/page15901.aspx, date=2011-09-06, City of Boise
Fort Boise Community Center

Historic Fort Boise Military Cemetery

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20061005005619/http://www.idahoelksrehab.org/facilityhis.html Idaho Elks Rehabilitation Hospital
Fort Boise history

University of Washington Libraries
– image of old Fort Boise (c. 1849) National Register of Historic Places in Boise, Idaho National Register of Historic Places in Canyon County, Idaho Hudson's Bay Company forts History of Boise, Idaho Pre-statehood history of Idaho Idaho in the American Civil War Fur trade Oregon Country Boise Boise Former installations of the United States Army Boise Parks in Idaho Geography of Boise, Idaho Protected areas of Ada County, Idaho Tourist attractions in Boise, Idaho Boise 1834 establishments in the British Empire Snake War Military installations established in 1863 Military installations closed in 1912 1863 establishments in Idaho Territory 1912 disestablishments in Idaho