Pierce Courthouse and I. B. Cowan, 1920. ISHS 411-B-2a.

For many years, the town of Pierce enjoyed the distinction of being Idaho's oldest town. However, later research determined that Franklin, in southeastern Idaho, was actually settled several months earlier by Mormon pioneers.

The first gold rush on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation started at the site in September of 1860 when W. F. Bassett, one of a company of prospectors, began successfully panning for gold in Oro Fino Creek at the mouth of Canal Gulch. Although prospecting on the reservation was illegal, the discovery stirred up a mining fever among residents of Walla Walla, Washington, and several expeditions ventured into the Clearwater River area.

The original prospectors and many of the subsequent expeditions were led by Elias D. Pierce, an individual more interested in opening new areas to mining than in actually seeking the mineral himself. Instead, he visited the Washington territorial capital in Olympia and lobbied for permission to build a toll road to the new mining region. During his absence, other miners named the new town in his honor. Pierce himself returned briefly in the spring of 1861 to run a sawmill, but he soon left to search for a new mining region.

The Pierce Courthouse today

On January 8, 1861, the Washington Legislature established Shoshone County and made Pierce the county seat. By that summer, thousands of gold seekers poured into the Nez Perce country, which had been set aside as a reservation in 1855, and the town became a boisterous mining town in what was then Washington Territory.

At first, the county commissioners met and court proceedings were held in rented rooms. Private citizens were paid to provide room and board for prisoners and. In 1862, Shoshone County built a courthouse at Pierce. The county remained a part of Washington Territory until Idaho Territory was established in 1863. By then roads, towns, farms, and dwellings were scattered across the landscape, and that year a new treaty reduced the Nez Perce reservation to less than one tenth its original size.

The Pierce Courthouse served governmental needs until 1885, when the county seat was moved to Murray.