Fort Hall was the last major stop on the Oregon trail, a replica of the fort is located in Pocatello ID. There are actually 2 Fort Halls, the original Fort Hall was on the Snake river and a trading post from 1834–1856. In 1856 flood waters from the Snake river washed the Fort away. The ‘replica’ was created for historical reasons. It was here where the Oregon trail split, the California Trail went southwest and the Oregon trail continued west. So for some reason I am very interested in the Oregon Trail so this was a must see for me.
The site has a museum that has displays of local history, plus the Oregon Trail. They also are building a replica of a town next to the fort, plus there is nice park there. The fort itself was nice, but I suspect that my excitement of seeing this was diminished from touring other forts. I still think Fort Laramie was the best one to tour and it was the most important fort along the trail. A little bit of history, the trading post was originally owned by the Hudson Bay Company, which was a British company. In the early days of the trading post, they tried to influence travelers to head for California instead of Oregon. The reason was very simple, England was trying to get foot hold on the northwest territories, what is Oregon and Washington state today. To combat this congress expanded the homestead act for the Oregon territory that allowed woman to also stake a claim, what this meant is both the husband and wife could each claim 160 acres.
