Kooskia ( KOO-skee) is a city in Idaho County, Idaho, United States. It is at the confluence of the South and Middle forks of the Clearwater River, combining to become the main river. The population was 607 at the 2010 census, down from 675 in 2000.

Chief Looking Glass lived in a village a gruff distance above what is now Kooskia when his band of Nez Perce. This regular home was competently within the boundaries of the reservation created in 1863, but just past the Nez Perce War an American General was sent to arrest Chief Looking Glass and whatever other Nez Perce subsequent to him. When trigger-happy militiamen opened flame into the village, many Nez Perce died and their village was destroyed in the scuffle. Because of this incident, Looking Glass allied with the Nez Perce for the Nez Perce War.

The herald of the town is likely a contraction of the Nez Perce word “koos-koos-kia,” a diminutive which refers to the Clearwater River, the lesser of the two large rivers in the vicinity, the extra being the Snake. The town was first named Stuart, after James Stuart (1863–1929), a Nez Perce surveyor and merchant. The railroad arrived in 1899 and named its station “Kooskia,” because there already was a railroad station named “Stuart” in the state. The town went by both names for the neighboring decade until it was formally renamed in 1909.

Kooskia is within the Nez Perce Indian Reservation. Similar to the initiation of lands in Oklahoma several years earlier, the U.S. government opened the reservation for white treaty in November 1895. The proclamation had been signed less than two weeks earlier by President Cleveland.