The Northwestern Band of Shoshone live in southern Idaho and northern Utah, covering land in Blackfoot, Idaho and Bingham County in Idaho, and Brigham City, Utah, and Box Elder County in Utah. Their headquarters are in Brigham City,Utah, but they also have a tribal office in Pocatello, Idaho. They became a federally recognized tribe in 1987.

The band was created out of groups that traveled mainly on foot, and eventually on horses when they became available. They traveled with the seasons, going to Idaho in the fall to fish, then into Wyoming to hunt big game, and then for the spring and summer they would go back to Idaho and to Utah.

The Wasatch Mountains of Utah provided small game and important seeds and plant roots for the bands, although unfortunately the settlers’ sheep and cattle stripped the land of many of these vital sources, causing many of the Shoshone to starve. The Mormons that arrived in the 1850s began occupying Shoshone land, and California-bound emigrants wasted Indian food sources during their travels. This, along with the discovery of gold in Montana, increased the traffic in their territory and lead to conflict.

Not well known in U.S. history is the violent Bear River Massacre, the largest massacre of Indians in the country's history. On January 29, 1863, the militia of the U.S. Army’s Third California Volunteers under the command of Colonel Patrick Connor massacred around 350 Northwestern Shoshone Indians. It happened at the Bear River, four miles north of Preston, Idaho, and the area was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.

After the massacre, settlers moved unopposed into their land, and the Northwestern Shoshone lost their land base and traditional way of life. They went on to settle land south of Portage, Utah.