Editing Fort Hall (section)

===Oregon Country===
{{Main|Oregon Country}}

In the late 1820s, [[Hall J. Kelley]] of Boston was among men who became interested in commercial possibilities in the [[Oregon Country]], described by a later historian as offering a "field of exploitation for adventurous capital".<ref name="Eaton"/> He recruited [[Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth]], an inventor and businessman who had made the ice industry successful in Boston, to his plan to invest in an expedition to the Northwest where they would make their fortunes. They planned a joint expedition in 1831, with intentions to establish a company for fur trading and developing a salmon [[fishery]] to rival New England's cod fishery. Organizing the expedition suffered delays and it never took place.

In 1832 Wyeth decided to proceed on his own with an independent expedition. With a company of 70-100 men, he intended to establish a fishery and trading post on the [[Columbia River]] near its confluence with the Willamette River (part of present-day Portland, Oregon). Related plans were to supply trade goods to trappers in the [[Rocky Mountains]] and possibly slaughter and dry bison for export to Cuba. A major investor in the fishery/trading post enterprise was Henry Hall, a partner of the Boston firm Tucker & Williams & Henry Hall.<ref name="Eaton"/> In addition to fur trading, they planned to export [[salmon]] to [[New England]] and [[Hawaii]].

In 1832, [[Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville]] and his party had first taken wagons over the [[South Pass (Wyoming)|South Pass]] of the Rocky Mountains. This route had been rediscovered by trappers in 1824. It led back to the [[North Platte River]] valley, which was being developed as a key route in connecting the East by a wagon road to the [[Oregon Country]]. The Platte Rivers were chief transportation corridors, and the river valleys provided level land for wagons. This was the route for {{Convert|500|miles|km}} from the Missouri River fur ports at [[Independence, Missouri|Independence]] and [[St. Joseph, Missouri|St. Joseph]], [[Missouri]]. Other emigrants went overland starting from [[St. Louis]], Missouri, where the fur companies and emigrant suppliers were based.

The [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] had used South Pass, as well as a more northerly trail which they had guided the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] to follow during their 1804–1806 journey into Oregon and to the Pacific Coast. It had frequent obstacles, turns and switchbacks, making it difficult for wagon trains, mules and oxen, the common beasts of burden for the emigrants.

The 1834 trappers' [[Rocky Mountain Rendezvous|rendezvous]] was held at a meadow around Hams Fork, (near present-day [[Granger, Wyoming]]); the annual events were occasions for sales between [[Mountain man|mountain men]], who were independent trappers and traders, and agents of the fur companies, who bought the furs and supplied the traders with goods. The rendezvous were organized by the fur companies and were several-day affairs that were business, but festive in nature and oiled by alcohol.