Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

the Big Lost River (Ferris 1940). Natheniel J.
Wyeth also reported American Indians camped
near the Big Lost River (Wyeth 1899). Although
the INL area was probably not used as a wintering
ground, it seems certain that it was frequently
visited, either in transit to other areas, as a
destination for groups interested in obtaining
obsidian from the Big Southern Butte or Howe
Point, or for those attracted by food resources such
as bison, which are reported to have existed in
great numbers in the INL area (Haines 1969; Ross
1956; Work 1923).
A list of animals utilized by the American
Indians of southeastern Idaho, as reported
ethnographically (Shimken 1947; Steward 1938),
would include all of the following and more: ants,
badgers, bears, beavers, birds, bird eggs, bison,
caterpillars, chipmunks, cicadas, crickets, deer,
doves, eagles, elk, fish, grasshoppers, ground
squirrels, marmots, mountain lions, mountain
sheep, muskrats, owls, packrats, pronghorn, quail,
rabbits, and sage grouse. The Shoshone and
Bannock people also knew and utilized many
plants for food and other practical purposes
(Anderson et al. 1997). Indeed, it is likely that
virtually every plant on the high desert was used in
some way at some time of the year. Most, if not
all, of these animals and plants continue to be
available on or near INL and are still important to
tribal members.
From approximately 1810 to 1850, the
American Indians in southeastern Idaho remained
relatively undisturbed by the small groups of
trappers, traders, miners, and emigrants who
worked on or simply passed through
Shoshone-Bannock territory on their way to
California, Washington, and Oregon. However,
conflicts began to arise after gold discoveries and
Euro-American settlement in the 1860s. In the late
1860s, treaties were signed between the tribes and
the U.S. government in an attempt to reduce
conflicts.
History: Euro American
From 1805, when Lewis and Clark explored
what is now central Idaho, until gold was
discovered in the early 1860s, exploration and
development in southeastern Idaho was sparse.
The socioeconomic development that was once
dependent on trapping and fur trading became
dependent on more abundant resources such as
water, land, and minerals. Cattle and sheep were
soon introduced, and while agriculture eventually
became the leading economic force in southeastern
Idaho as a whole, another resource—people—
became instrumental in INL development.
Trapping and Fur Trading
Settlement of the American West owed itself,
as much as anything, to a hat. The hat was made of
a beaver pelt, and, during the 1820s and 1830s, no
dedicated follower of fashion would settle for
anything less (Reisner 1979). Therefore, it is no
surprise that the first Euro Americans to explore
the INL region were the trappers, also known as
mountain men. In 1816, Donald Mackenzie
organized the Snake River Expeditions to explore
territory that includes what we now call INL. He
was followed in 1823 by Antoine Goddin, who
trapped beaver extensively in the Little Lost River
region (Hammer 1967). Osborne Russell spent
time on the eastern Snake River Plain in late 1835
and described in his journal (one of the more
reliable for this time period) large buffalo herds,
the three buttes, and the Lost River sinks (Haines
1969). In 1834, a trading and supply post, Fort
Hall, was established south of INL’s present-day
boundary by Nathaniel Wyeth (Trego n.d.). Today,
the remains of this early establishment are located
within the boundaries of the Fort Hall
Shoshone-Bannock Reservation.
While mountain men are generally credited
with opening the door to settlement of the
American West, it may be more accurate to say
that they nearly slammed it shut. Indeed, the
terrors they endured were hardly apt to draw
settlers, and the written accounts they left had to
weigh heavy on the settlers’ minds. These
accounts described arid plains that could support
little more than wild bunchgrass; entire regions
that alternated between fierce heat and stinging
cold; incessant winds; streams that flooded a few
weeks each year and went dry the rest (see
Figure 13); hostile Indians, grizzly bears, and
wolves; grasshopper plagues; hail, followed by
drought, followed by hail; and flecks of precious
metal that never panned out. Although they made
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