Another has it for Jacob Weiser, a trapper-turned-miner who struck it rich in Baboon Gulch in the Florence Basin of Idaho in 1861.

William Logan and his wife Nancy were the first white settlers in the vicinity of Weiser in 1863 building a roadhouse in anticipation of the opening of Olds Ferry west of them on the Snake River across from Farewell Bend.

[7] Weiser reached its height of prosperity when a railroad way station was established and it became a transportation hub for travelers.

Its history is well represented by the great number of original buildings from the 1890s and early 1900s that are on the National Register of Historic Places.

Likewise the Union Pacific, after taking over the Oregon Short Line chose not to locate its major section yards in the flats west of Weiser—probably due to inflated prices asked by land speculators—and built at Huntington, Oregon at the western edge of the Snake River valley.

Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson played semi-pro baseball for the Weiser Kids as a young man in 1906–1907.

After high school in Fullerton, California, the "Big Train" was lured to Weiser to play baseball and work for the local telephone company.

His skills drew the attention of the Washington Nationals, who sent scout Cliff Blankenship to offer Johnson a contract, and in July 1907 he departed Idaho for the major leagues at age nineteen.

Weiser bills itself as the "Fiddling Capital of the World" and the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest has been held each year since 1953.

Fiddling contests have been held in Weiser since 1914, but the present festival was the idea of Blaine Stubblefield, a fiddler and folk music collector, and the head of the city's chamber of commerce.

For many years Weiser's location as the last city upriver from Hells Canyon made it the jump-off point for wilderness tours by powered rubber raft down the gorge.

The salmon runs ended not long after the float tours with the blocking of the river by three hydro-power dams built by Idaho Power Company starting in the 1950s.

Weiser experiences a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) with cold winters and hot, dry summers.

The National Youth Administration (NYA) took a part of the boarding school facility in the 1930s after Paddock experienced old age and ill health.

[20] Washington County is in the area (but not the taxing region) of the College of Western Idaho, which has its main campus in Nampa.