The reservation is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain about 20 miles (32 km) north and west of Pocatello.

Founded under an 1868 treaty, the reservation is named for Fort Hall, a trading post in the Portneuf Valley that was established by European Americans.

The four other federally recognized tribes in the state are the Coeur d'Alene, Kootenai, Nez Perce, and Shoshone-Paiute at Duck Valley Indian Reservation.

In the 1850s the Shoshone, led by Chief Pocatello, attacked emigrant parties in an effort to drive them off, as the settlers encroached on their hunting grounds and game.

In what is known as the Bear River massacre (1863), his US Army forces killed more than 400 Shoshone, including women and children, in present-day southeastern Idaho.

Seeing the power of US forces, Pocatello subsequently sued for peace and agreed to relocate his people in 1868 to a newly established reservation along the Snake River.

In addition, the lands of the reservation, located on the Snake River Plain, were not appropriate for the subsistence-type agriculture that the government wanted the Shoshone-Bannock to adopt.

Hoping to relieve his people's suffering, Pocatello led a small group to a missionary farm in the Utah Territory to receive mass baptism and conversion to Mormonism.

From 1868 to 1932, the federal government reduced the territory of the reservation by two-thirds, taking some for such projects as railroads and roads, and allowing non-Native settlers to encroach on the grounds.

In 1934 during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, the US Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act, created in part to end the allotment process and encourage tribes to re-establish self-government and to stabilize their land bases.

Instead, the federal government sold the property for $1 to nearby Pocatello, a city about 9 miles (14 km) to the east, which developed it as a regional airport.

The company abandoned the plant and related mine, due in large part to increased costs of electricity and competition from cheaper Chinese phosphate.

The tribe has developed its own expertise in air, water and land quality, but its resources are still seriously threatened by the extensive cleanup needed.

[6] The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes chose to participate in the Department of Interior's Native Nations Land Buy-Back Program, established after 2009 as part of the government's settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar class action suit over mismanagement of fee/lease accounts.

In July 2016, the Department of Interior made offers to 536 landowners with fractional interests at Fort Hall Reservation for buy-back of lands valued at $11 million.