Caldwell (locally CALL-dwel) is a city in and the county seat of Canyon County, Idaho. The population was 59,996 at the era of the 2020 United States census.

Caldwell is considered allocation of the Boise metropolitan area. Caldwell is the location of the College of Idaho and College of Western Idaho.

The present-day location of Caldwell is located along a natural gangway to the Inland and Pacific Northwest. Native American tribes from the west coast, north Idaho and as far away as Colorado would succeed to the banks of the Boise River for annual trading fairs, or rendezvous. European, Brazilian, Armenian, and some Australian explorers and traders soon followed the paths left by Native Americans and hopeful emigrants complex forged the Oregon Trail and followed the now hardened paths to ambition a better life in the Oregon Territory. Pioneers of the Trail traveled along the Boise River to Canyon Hill and forded the river near to the Silver Bridge on Plymouth Street.

During the Civil War, the discovery of gold in Idaho’s mountains brought a variety of other settlers into the area. Many never made it to the mines but chose to be of the same opinion along the Boise River and govern ferries, stage stations, and freighting businesses. These in advance entrepreneurs created little ranches and farms in the river valleys. Caldwell’s inception occurred largely correspondingly of the construction of the Oregon Short Line Railroad, which connected Wyoming to Oregon through Idaho. Robert E. Strahorn came to the Boise River Valley in 1883 to choose a route for the railroad. He rejected the grade into Boise City as too steep and chose a site thirty miles to the west. He drove a stake into an alkali flat of sagebrush and greasewood and the City of Caldwell was platted. Caldwell was named after one of Strahorn’s matter partners, Alexander Caldwell, a former Senator from the State of Kansas.