Fort Boise, Historic trading post in Canyon County, Idaho, United States

Fort Boise is a historic trading post site in Canyon County, Idaho, once located at the confluence of the Boise and Snake Rivers. The original complex had adobe buildings, a kitchen, a milk house, and two-story bastions surrounded by a thick adobe wall.

Thomas McKay built Fort Boise in the fall of 1834 for the Hudson's Bay Company, on the same Snake River site used by earlier Astor and North West Company posts. The HBC took full control in 1836, after buying out Nathaniel Wyeth's operations. Francois Payette ran the post from 1835 to 1844 and built a second fort in 1838, a 100-foot-per-side parallelogram with a 15-foot stockade later faced in adobe. A flood damaged it in 1853, and it was abandoned in 1854.

The name Boise comes from the French word for wooded, given to the river by French-Canadian trappers. Francois Payette, a French Canadian, ran the post from 1835 to 1844 with a crew of mostly Hawaiian (Owyhee) workers. The reconstructed replica in Parma, with its adobe walls and gabled roof, can be visited by appointment with the city office.

The area where the post once stood is now part of a wildlife management area run by the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Visitors can walk the trails, watch birds, and find a statue and exhibits near the entrance that explain the history of the site.

Some of the workers at the post came from Hawaii, which made the crew unusually varied for a remote frontier outpost in the early 1800s. The exact location of the fort is now unknown, as the site is believed to have been swallowed by the river over the years.