The origin of the name is uncertain. One account credits Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville of the U.S. Army as its source. After trekking for weeks through dry and rough terrain, his exploration party reached an overlook with a view of the Boise River Valley. The place where they stood is called Bonneville Point, located on the Oregon Trail east of the city. According to the story, a French-speaking guide, overwhelmed by the sight of the verdant river, yelled “Les bois ! Les bois !” (“The woods! The woods!”)—and the name stuck.
The name may also derive from earlier mountain men who named the river that flows through it. In the 1820s, French Canadian fur trappers associated with the British-owned HBC set trap lines in the vicinity. Set in a high-desert area, the tree-lined valley of the Boise River became a distinct landmark, an oasis dominated by cottonwood trees. They called this “La rivière boisée”, which means “the wooded river.”
Most local and longtime residents use the pronunciation /ˈbɔɪsiː/ (BOY-see), as given on the city’s website. The pronunciation is sometimes used as a shibboleth, as outsiders (and newcomers) tend to pronounce the city’s name as /ˈbɔɪziː/ (BOY-zee).
The area of Boise valley was inhabited by Boise Valley Shoshone and Bannock tribes, a part of the “Snake Country.” According to the City of Boise’s “History of Boise” report, “they gathered annually in the valley to participate in trading rendezvous with other tribes and catch salmon in the Boise River runs to help sustain them year-round. They spent winters in the valley where the climate was milder and visited the hot springs for bathing and healing. Castle Rock, called Eagle Rock by the tribes, was and remains a sacred site.”
Boise Valley Shoshone belonged to the “Yahandeka” (groundhog eaters) grouping. They were among the early mounted Shoshone bands. They traveled over a considerable range by the beginning of the nineteenth century, with their main hunting lands along the lower Boise River and Payette River. When Donald MacKenzie developed the Snake country fur trade after 1818, the most prominent of the Boise Shoshone, Peiem (a Shoshoni rendition of “Big Jim”, their leader’s English name), became the most influential leader of the large composite Shoshoni band that white trappers regularly encountered in the Snake Country.
In 1811, Wilson Hunt, employed as an agent in the fur trade under John Jacob Astor, organized and led the greater part of a group of about 60 men on an overland expedition to establish a fur trading outpost at the mouth of the Columbia River. This expedition passed through the Boise valley, and was the first ever time a white American has entered the region. Because of the War of 1812 and the lack of U.S. fur trading posts in the Pacific Northwest, most of the route was not used in the following two decades, and thus Snake Country remained free of settler incursions.
After the conclusion of the war of 1812, up until the 1840s, Oregon, while officially “jointly administered”, was solely dominated by the British Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), which had a land connection to the inland of the Canadian Prairies via York Factory Express. Snake Country, including Boise Valley remained independent and relatively free of settler passage and incursion. This was due to two main reasons. Firstly, the general region to the East of the Rockies at the time, was described in the media and literature of Eastern US as the “Great American Desert”, an arid unproductive region, unsuitable for habitation. Thus the region of Boise itself was of no interest to settlers. Oregon Country, on the other side of the Rockies, was however a desirable destination for settlers. Nevertheless, the British had an official policy of discouraging American settlers. Thus, settler incursions into Boise Valley along the Oregon Trail remained low, until early 1840s.
The HBC established a fort in the region, the Old Fort Boise, 40 miles (64 km) west, near Parma, down the Boise River near its confluence with the Snake River at the Oregon border. They were present in the fort until 1844, handing the fort over to the United States Army afterwards.
Starting from early 1840s, developments further West, in modern Oregon, meant significant changes to the region of Boise. At this time, HBC and the British started moving their operations further North into British Columbia, while there was a slow and steady rise in number of settlers in Oregon Country, who demanded annexation. These developments eventually cumulated in Oregon Treaty, in which the British gave the region up to the US, thus ending the era of “Joint occupation”. This meant that Boise valley and much of Snake Country was claimed as Oregon Territory.
With the discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the passage of Donation Land Claim Act, the settler incursions increased exponentially. The increased settler incursions through Shoshone and Bannock territories, and their increased exploitation of the valley’s game and resources on their trip, resulted in an increasing sense of frustration among the Indigenous bands along the entire Oregon Trail. Thus, starting from early 1850s, in order to deter settler caravans from using the route and trespassing on their lands, Native peoples along the entire length of the trail, from modern Eastern Idaho to modern Central Oregon started staging low intensity attacks against passing caravans.
One such attack, referred to as “Ward Massacre”, was in Boise Valley, about 20 Miles to the West of modern Boise. On August 20, 1854, Alexander Ward’s five-wagon caravan of 20 emigrants was passing through, when a group of Shoshone and Bannock warriors ambushed the caravan. The goal of the ambush was initially to take away the horses of the caravan. However, shooting of one of the Shoshone warriors with a revolver, resulted in the killing of everyone except for two of Alexander Ward’s children by the Shoshone warriors. In response, the United States Army launched the Winnas Expedition, which involved raids on Native encampments for a period of several months during Summer of 1855. In the period between 1846 and 1856, 700 white settlers were killed along the entire length of Oregon Trail due to attacks and raids by Native warriors on their caravans while intruding native land. American military intrusion and retaliation only further angered the native tribes and escalated the conflict, which forced the United States Army to abandon Old Fort Boise. Intensified attacks against passing caravans made travel impossible for settlers except with US Army escort, which started from 1858.
For much of the rest of the 1850s, and even after the pulling out of the United States Army to be deployed at the American Civil War, and their replacement with “volunteer” militias from California and Oregon. Decline of gold business in California prompted white settlers to search for gold elsewhere. This included an inclusion of much of Idaho in this search. The 1860 discovery of gold in Pierce, Idaho on the territory of Nez Perce nation, and the settling down of settlers in this location, raised tensions significantly. On the same year in September, another major event happened along Oregon Trail, the Utter Party Massacre at about 100 miles to the Southeast of Boise, during which 29 out of a group of 44 settlers were either killed or captured in an intense and organized ambush. It appeared that this region of Snake Country was on the verge of war.
Discovery of gold around Boise valley in 1863, and ongoing warfare prompted the US Military to establish a new Fort Boise, where Boise is located today. The new location was selected because it was near the intersection of the Oregon Trail with a major road connecting the Boise Basin (Idaho City) and the Owyhee (Silver City) mining areas, both of which were booming. On the same year, the United States established Idaho Territory, whose declared boundaries included this region. After a year, with the creation of Montana Territory, Boise was made the territorial capital of a much reduced Idaho in a controversial decision which overturned a district court ruling by a one-vote majority in the territorial supreme court along geographic lines in 1866. The location of was in the middle of the Snake Country, on the lands of Boise Valley Shoshone and Bannock Tribes. There was no treaty and no agreement with any of the native tribes up to this point, and the violent resistance against incursion and settlement onto their territory along the Oregon Trail and at the newly-found gold mines continued unabated. In order to resolve the matter of ownership and sovereignty over land, Caleb Lyon, the 2nd governor of Idaho, negotiated with the Boise Valley Shoshone Tribe, and concluded the “Treaty of Fort Boise” on October 10, 1864. This treaty stipulated that the tribe will give up lands to 30 miles on each side of Boise River, land upon which Boise is located, while allowing an equal right to fishing in the river to both the Shoshone and the settlers. The treaty has not been ratified by the US senate to this date, and the tribe hasn’t ever received any treaty payments.
Backlash from the perceived friendliness of Caleb Lyon in his dealing with the tribes led to an escalation of pressure and agitation among the White Settlers in Boise and the print media in the city, in demanding either genocide or removal of the tribes. Settler violence against Boise Valley native tribes increased considerably, with some going as far introducing bounties to murder any native.Idaho Statesman, the daily newspaper of Boise, which started publishing in 1864, reflected many such incitements and demands:
At the same time, native warriors around the valley, under the leadership of Howluck also known as “Bigfoot” among white settlers, among others, waged an escalating and intensified guerilla campaign of harassment of passerby caravans along the Oregon Trail. The United States Army also escalated and intensified “punitive expeditions” against formations of warriors and against civilian communities as well. This marked the start of the “unofficial” Snake War in 1866. This war lasted until 1868, and is statistically the deadliest of the Indian Wars in the West in terms of casualties. In the end, 1,762 men were counted as the casualties of this war from both sides.
In 1868, Fort Hall Indian Reservation was established in Southeastern Idaho, about 220 miles upstream, according to the terms of Fort Bridger Treaty. The Boise Valley Shoshone and Bannock Tribes were not party to this treaty. Nevertheless, in April 1869, the United States Military embarked on a campaign of “Removal, rounding up of natives in the region including in and around Boise, and expelling them with cavalry escort to Fort Hall Indian Reservation. This period is known among the Shoshone and Bannock people as Idaho’s Trail of Tears. The forced march to Forth Hall took one month, and out of 500 natives, only 350 made it. Some of the natives managed to escape, and they ran to either Duck Valley or Fort McDermitt in Nevada.
Designed by Alfred B. Mullett, the U.S. Assay Office at 210 Main Street was built in 1871 and today is a National Historic Landmark.
In 1925, with the construction of Chicago-Portland railway line, Boise Union Pacific Depot was established in the city. This train station served passengers until 1997.
While to this day, Boise is on top of unceded indigenous land, and its legal status has not been determined yet, in the spirit of reconciliation between Boise’s residents and the native tribes of Boise Valley, on June 8, 2017, Mayor David Bieter has declared the start of the annual “Return of the Boise Valley People Day”. The Mayor’s declaration stated that descendants of Boise Valley indigenous peoples will return to the site of “Eagle Rock” on the East End of Boise, a site near the State of Idaho’s Old Penitentiary compound and adjacent to the Idaho Botanical Gardens. In 2019, this declaration was followed up by the official renaming of “Quarry View Park” to “Eagle Rock Park” with signage also displaying the native Shoshoni name “Pava Kweena Teppi”, and the “Castle Rock Reserve” to “Chief Eagle Eye Reserve” with signage also displaying the native Shoshoni name “Ige Dai Teviwa”. This site has spiritual and traditional importance to the natives of Boise valley, and is home to a Native American burial ground.
