Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Pierce, ID

Pierce is a city in the northwest United States, located in Clearwater County, Idaho.

The population was 467 at the 2020 census, down from 508 in 2010.

The first discovery of gold in Idaho, then Washington Territory, was made by Elias D. Pierce and Wilbur F. Bassett on Orofino Creek, at Canal Gulch, in October 1860, a mile north of Pierce.

The gold discovery led to a significant reduction of the land agreement made with the Nez Perce people at the Walla Walla Council in 1855, in a new treaty in 1863, and to the Nez Perce War in 1877.

Pierce was established in 1861 as the first town in Idaho, and it was named the county seat of Shoshone County, with its 1862 territorial courthouse being the first government building in Idaho.

By the mid-1870s Pierce had become one of the largest cities in Idaho, with a population of over 5,000 people, but by the early 1900s its population had dwindled to just a few hundred.

The Pierce Courthouse still stands one block off Main Street, and the staff and volunteers of the adjacent J. Howard Bradbury Logging Museum, housed in a 1928 log cabin, operate the courthouse building under an agreement with the Idaho State Historical Society.

The Pierce Free Public Library is an excellent source of information on the area and has a display of mining artifacts, and the Pierce Historic Museum features exhibits on the town's mining history and the daily lives of its residents.

The other gold of the Pierce area is its vast forests, often called green gold, and the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest boasts the largest stand of Western White Pine in the world.

Pierce is a gateway to the Clearwater backcountry, about 30 miles east of Orofino, with the Bald Mountain Ski Area nearby along the Gold Rush Historic Byway, and Lewis and Clark first encountered the Nez Perce near Weippe, just ten miles east of town.