The Payette River is named for Francois Payette, a French-Canadian trapper and early explorer of the major tributaries of the Snake River. British, Canadian, and American fur companies competed for the region's abundant natural resources, and in 1821 Britain's Hudson's Bay Company tried to gain control of the Oregon Country by sending its Snake Brigades to trap out beaver from the Snake River country and create a "fur desert" that would block encroaching American trappers. Francois Payette came into the country in 1811 with the Pacific Fur Company, then transferred to the North West Company after that ill-fated enterprise disbanded, and entered the Hudson's Bay Company when the two companies merged in 1821. For years he trapped with the Snake Brigades, and his reputation as a steady man with great knowledge of the Snake River country helped him rise within the company. In 1837 he took charge of Fort Boise, the Hudson's Bay Company's fur trading post at the mouth of the Boise River near present-day Parma, Idaho, and managed it until his retirement in 1844, greeting missionaries, explorers, and emigrants on the Oregon Trail. Britain abandoned its claim to the Oregon Country in 1846 because of the decline of the fur trade and a growing American presence, and once that ownership question was settled, the way was opened to rapid American settlement.