Between 1845 and 1854, three wagon trains left this campsite seeking a cutoff to the Willamette Valley on the Oregon Trail. In 1845, frontiersman Stephen Meek persuaded over 1,000 people with 200 wagons to avoid the Blue Mountains, Cayuse Indians, and Columbia River by turning west up the Malheur River into Central Oregon. Unable to find water west of Wagontire Mountain, the train turned north and rejoined the Oregon Trail at The Dalles, where hunger and illness on the trek had led to 23 deaths. In 1853, Elijah Elliott convinced over 1,000 people with 215 wagons to try a shortcut over the partially completed Free Emigrant Road, explored in 1852. His party followed Meek's route as far as the Harney Valley before taking a different course around Malheur and Harney Lakes, then became disoriented and desperate until scouts found the Free Emigrant Road in the Cascade Mountains and reached the Willamette Valley settlements, whose settlers organized a rescue party for the stranded emigrants. In 1852, Benton, Lane, and Linn Counties jointly hired William Macy to find a route between Skinner's, now Eugene, and the distant Malheur River. After crossing the Cascade Mountains and following the Deschutes River north before turning east on the Meek Cutoff, his party abandoned the search after a skirmish with Snake Indians in the Harney Valley, but the venture helped lead to the eventual construction of the Free Emigrant Road. In 1854, Macy led 121 wagons over much the same route as Elliott's without recorded difficulty.