Fort Boise was originally built by Thomas McKay of the British Hudson’s Bay Company in the fall of 1834 near the confluence of the Boise and Snake River. The post was a response to Fort Hall, the trading post built by American Nathaniel Wyeth a couple hundred miles upriver on the Snake near what is now Pocatello, Idaho. The Hudson’s Bay Company would soon own both forts but with the decline of the fur trade the posts served became primarily used as rest and resupply stops along the Oregon Trail for the thousands of American emigrants who were heading west