Fort Hall Man Will Be Allowed To Conduct Tours Reservation Excursions Will Include Oregon Trail Visits

After almost five years of trying, Robert Perry Sr. has won permission from the Shoshone-Bannock Business Council to conduct tours of the Old Fort Hall Bottoms.

Perry, who has lived on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation for 66 years, said the tours would include places where the Oregon Trail crisscrosses the reservation and the site of the fort itself.

“People take it for granted,” Perry said as his pickup truck passed his birthplace, about a quarter-mile off a gravel road. “They cross the Oregon Trail 10 times a day and don’t even realize it.”

He said the two-hour bus tours will start at the Fort Hall Trading Post. Tourists will ride from there to the Old Fort Hall monument, about 200 feet from the Snake River.

The first tour is not scheduled yet and the price is not yet firm, but Perry said he soon would offer two trips every Saturday and Sunday. He hopes to begin by the time the Shoshone-Bannock Festival starts Aug. 10.

Money from the tours will help preserve segments of Oregon Trail ruts that can still be seen on the reservation, said Perry, who also is trying to obtain covered wagons from a Casper, Wyo., wagonmaster to take tourists all the way from Chesterfield to Fort Hall.

Tribal Business Council Chairman Delbert Farmer said he thought the tours were a good idea, and that the council should do more long-range planning to integrate tourism on the reservation.