Founding year: the first Fort Hall post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).
History grade
What drives Fort Hall’s History grade
On its age, its old homes and the National Register, Fort Hall is more historic than 46% of U.S. towns, #28 of 59 in Idaho. Its share of homes from before 1940 holds the grade up; its age pulls it down.
B−
HistoryA character grade: shown, never part of Fort Hall’s overall grade.
Idaho towns list more on the Register than most of the country (a typical Idaho town has 8.4 per 10,000 residents, the U.S. 2.4), so Fort Hall’s 3.8 sits near the middle of its state (46% of Idaho towns have fewer) while its 1 listings outnumber those of 51% of U.S. towns.
How sure. Graded on any two of the three inputs instead, the letter would range from C to B−. The pre-1940 share is a Census survey estimate (±7.3 points). The founding year is the first post office, not a stated founding date.
Founding year: the first post office (other dates in Quick answers). Homes: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register: National Park Service, May 2026 list; each listing counted once (boundary changes and added documentation belong to their listing), and a historic district counts its contributing buildings. How TownRatings grades history →
What stands out about Fort Hall’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Fort Hall yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Fort Hall is a census-designated place (CDP) in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho which is split between Bannock County in the south and Bingham County in the north. It is located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Snake River north of Pocatello and near the site of the original Fort Hall in the Oregon Country. The population was 3,195 at the 2020 census. The Bannock County portion of Fort Hall is part of the Pocatello, Idaho Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the Bingham County portion is part of the Blackfoot, Idaho Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Its first post office opened in 1866. Its population held steady between the last two censuses: 3,201 in 2010, 3,195 in 2020.
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
Timeline
Fort Hall, 1866 to 1959
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
The Fort Hall post office opened in 1866, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
How does Fort Hall rank for history?
Fort Hall is more historic than 46% of U.S. towns, #28 of 59 in Idaho. The History grade combines the town’s founding era, the share of homes built before 1940 and its National Register listings. It’s a character grade, so it isn’t part of the overall grade. How it works.
What is on the National Register in Fort Hall?
One place: the Ross Fork Oregon Short Lines Railroad Depot (listed 1984).
How old are the homes in Fort Hall?
14% of Fort Hall’s homes were built before 1940 (Census estimate, ±7.3 points), against a typical 8.5% for an Idaho town; the median home was built in 1978.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From the National Register of Historic Places (1), U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
