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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Canyon County, Idaho.
History
Hudson's Bay Company established Fort Boise in 1834 near what is now Parma, but abandoned it in 1855. Emigrants traveled through Canyon County on the Oregon Trail.
Discovery of gold in the Boise Basin in 1862 brought settlement to the region again. The lower Boise River was fully contained within Boise County from 1863 until the formation of Ada County in 1864. Settlement of the lower Boise River west of Boise City was limited prior to the completion of the Oregon Short Line Railroad. Middleton was the first settlement of Canyon County, starting in 1863.
The Idaho Legislature created Canyon County from Ada County in an act approved March 7, 1891, effective at the November 26, 1892 election. Caldwell was established as the county seat. The county originally contained all of Canyon and Payette counties and part of Gem County. Some sources attribute the name to the canyon of the Boise River near Caldwell, while western writers John Rees and Vardis Fisher believed it was named for the Snake River canyon, which forms a natural boundary with Owyhee County to the south and west.
Adjacent Counties
Cities & Communities
- Bowmont
- Caldwell (County Seat)
- Greenleaf
- Huston
- Melba
- Middleton
- Nampa
- Nota
- Parma
- Riverside
- Roswell
- Star (part)
- Sunnyslope
- Wilder
Links
Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge (part)
Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area (part)
National Register of Historic Places
