Orofino ("fine gold" [ore] in Spanish) is a city in Clearwater County, Idaho, along Orofino Creek and the north bank of the Clearwater River. The population was 3,142 at the 2010 census, and the city is the county seat of Clearwater County. It is the major city within the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.
Nearby is the historical "Canoe Camp," where the Lewis and Clark expedition built five new dugout canoes and embarked on October 7, 1805, downstream to the Pacific Ocean. Some 4 miles (6.4 km) north of town is the Dworshak Dam, third-highest dam in the United States, completed in the early 1970s. Nearby is the Dworshak National Fish Hatchery, started to try to compensate for the loss of migratory fish upstream after the dam was constructed.
Originally the name was two words, Oro Fino, applied to a gold mining camp established in 1861 two miles (3 km) south of Pierce; it is now a ghost town. When the United States government opened up the Nez Percé reservation to non-tribal settlers in 1895, thousands of European Americans rushed to lay claims to land. Clifford Fuller set up a trading post on his new homestead. The town (Orofino-on-the-Clearwater) was established the next year. The railroad, later part of the Camas Prairie Railroad, was constructed from Lewiston in 1899.
Orofino is home to state institutions: Idaho State Hospital North and the Idaho Correctional Institution - Orofino. These two facilities are located adjacent to Orofino High School, which includes the junior high or middle school grades. The school mascot is a "Maniac." This is one of only two high schools in the country with that nickname.
Orofino hosts the annual July 4 celebration, as well as the Clearwater County Fair and Lumberjack Days in late summer. Each spring, the annual Boomershoot is held nearby.