Father DeSmet held the first religious service in the West in Teton Valley near Driggs, or Pierre's Hole as it was known by trappers who gathered there each summer.

Pierre's Hole a shallow valley located in the drainage of the south fork of the Teton River was a strategic center of the fur trade of the northern Rocky Mountains. Explorer and mountain man John Colter, a member of the earlier Lewis & Clark Expedition, asserted that he passed through the valley in 1808. Through its mountain meadows, flanked by stands of timber, the south fork of the Teton River heads north to rendezvous with the Snake River. To mountain men, a low-lying valley surrounded by mountains was called a "hole." Mountain men worked these areas as rivers and streams created good habitat for beaver and other fur-bearing animals. This beaver rich basin was named in honor of "le grand Pierre" Tivanitagon, a Hudson's Bay Company trader said to be of Iroquois descent, who was killed in a battle with Blackfoot Indians in 1827.

Pierre's Hole was the site of the Rendezvous of 1832, one of the largest rendezvous held in the Rocky Mountains. The meeting was held at the foot of the Three Tetons in Teton County, Idaho. The basin was accessed from a trail that reached the Snake River from Green River. The trail then branched off towards Pierre's Hole through a gap between the Big Hole Mountains and the Palisades range.

Indian and mountain man camps extended from Teton Creek on the south end of present day Driggs, Idaho north along the west side of the Teton Mountains to Tetonia, Idaho. The camps covered an area of seven square miles, or more. It is estimated there were four hundred mountain men, one hundred and eight lodges of Nez Perce, eighty lodges of Flatheads, and over three thousand horses. Hundreds of mountain men, trappers, Indians and fur company traders met to sell furs or trade for supplies. The rendezvous would generally include recreation and entertainment, including contests, games and gambling. Most participants had a good time, swapping tall tales and drinking.

At the end of the 1832 rendezvous, an intense battle ensued between a group of Gros Ventre and the party of American trappers aided by their Nez Perce and Flathead allies.

The only mountain man to permanently settle in Pierre's Hole was an Englishman, Richard ' Beaver Dick ' Leigh, who first came to the Teton region sometime around 1860. He led F. V. Hayden and his geological survey through the Teton region, and one of Hayden's parties camped for ten days in Pierre's Hole in 1872. The basin, now generally called Teton Basin or Teton Valley, was later settled by a small group of Mormon farmers, who used the fertile but elevated valley to graze cattle and raise hay and other feed.

Web Sites:

City: http://driggs.govoffice.com/

Lodging: