Idaho Candy Company began as a dream for T.O. Smith in his home in 1901. Mr. Smith had been a journeyman candy maker in Chicago, IL and Salt Lake City, UT before he moved to Boise, ID to help build the Dewey Palace Hotel in Nampa, ID. After finishing the hotel he found himself out of work and started making candy and selling it door to door out of shoe boxes. Soon after starting T.O. had seventeen candy makers making candy in a small frame shop in the vicinity of 8th & Fort Street in Boise supplying the sweet tooths in Idaho.