Fort Lapwai and the Nez Perce

Fort Lapwai was established in eighteen sixty-two, planted on Nez Perce homeland in what is now northern Idaho. The army built it initially to keep the peace between the Nez Perce and the miners and settlers pouring onto their land, but its deeper role was enforcing the shrinking land boundaries imposed on the Nez Perce through a series of disputed treaties. The eighteen sixty-three treaty, signed by only a minority of Nez Perce leaders, reduced the tribe's territory by roughly ninety percent.

Those who refused to sign, including Chief Joseph's band, became known as the non-treaty Nez Perce. In eighteen seventy-seven, the army ordered them onto the reservation within thirty days, and when conflict erupted that June, Fort Lapwai became the army's operations center for the Nez Perce War. After the war, Fort Lapwai became an agency headquarters.

The site today is part of Nez Perce National Historical Park.