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Fort Hall
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===Old Fort Hall (1834β1856)=== [[File:Fort Hall Replica, Courtyard, Pocatello ID.jpeg|thumb|left|Courtyard of 1960s replica at [[Pocatello, Idaho|Pocatello]]]] In July 1834, Wyeth found that, despite his contract with [[Milton Sublette]] of the [[Rocky Mountain Fur Company]], its agents at the rendezvous refused to accept his goods. They paid only to cover the advance and the forfeit, claiming that they were dissolving the business. Wyeth notified Tucker & Williams of the problems. As he was left with stocks of goods, he advised them of his intention to go west about {{convert|150|mi}} to the [[Snake River]] country (present-day southeastern Idaho) and try to do business there. He was sending word in advance to Indian tribes to bring in buffalo robes for trading.<ref>[http://user.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/wyethltr.html#6 "Messr Tucker & Williams, from Hams Fork of the Colorado of the West, July 1st 1834"], ''Selected Letters of Nathaniel J. Wyeth'', accessed 30 April 2012</ref> Wyeth and his party traveled west some {{convert|150|mi}} to the Snake near the mouth of the [[Portneuf River (Idaho)|Portneuf]]. They constructed the wooden storehouses at Fort Hall. Wyeth named the fort after a major expedition investor, Henry Hall. They finished a [[palisade]] around the fort on July 31, 1834; it was the only outpost of European Americans in that area of the Oregon Country. Because of the [[Oregon boundary dispute]] between the United States and Great Britain, the region was open to settlement and economic activity, but not any formal claims. In practice, the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] maintained an effective monopoly on trade in the region. The British company controlled the [[Columbia River]]'s watershed. It shut out the independent trapper-trader mountain men and cut severely into the profit margins of the larger American overland fur trading companies{{mdash}}mostly organized in St. Louis. Between the Hudson's Bay Company and [[John Jacob Astor]]'s near-monopoly of American fur traders with the [[American Fur Company]], new companies regularly failed in their first half decade. Most mountain men had started to work under contract to the big companies. When Fort Hall was completed, Wyeth continued toward the Columbia River with members of his expedition. They encountered the Methodist missionary [[Jason Lee (missionary)|Jason Lee]] on his way to start the [[Methodist Mission]] in the [[Willamette Valley]]. Once Wyeth reached the lower Columbia, he built [[Fort William (Oregon)|Fort William]] to serve as the 'envisioned' "regular rendezvous point" on the Columbia.<ref name="Wyeth">{{cite web | last =Wyeth | first =Nathaniel J. | title = Selected Letters of Nathaniel J. Wyeth | work =personal letters | publisher = Xmission.com | url = http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/wyethltr.html | access-date = 2007-03-02 }}</ref> The HBC had been trapping in the Snake country for years. Using its trading post at [[Fort Boise]], it drove Wyeth's company out of business, and he sold Fort Hall to the HBC.<ref name="mackie">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKXgJw6K088C |last = Mackie |first= Richard Somerset |title= Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific 1793-1843|year= 1997 |publisher= University of British Columbia (UBC) Press |location= Vancouver |isbn= 978-0-7748-0613-8 |pages= 106β107}}</ref> The peak of the fur market had already passed, as furs were becoming scarce due to over trapping and European demand had declined due to changes in taste. Having struggled to keep workers and failed to make enough money, in August 1837, Wyeth sold both his forts to the [[Hudson's Bay Company]] (HBC). It controlled most of the fur trade in the Oregon Country (which they called the [[Columbia District]] or the Columbia Department) from their headquarters at [[Fort Vancouver]] on the Columbia River. As the British did not want American pioneers in Oregon, the HBC managers newly installed at Fort Hall discouraged pioneers. They showed new emigrants the abandoned wagons of earlier emigrants who lost their oxen. They were forced to proceed on foot with any remaining domestic animals.
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