Shoshone Falls in southern Idaho became known as the "Niagara of the West" after non-Native written accounts began in 1847 and Major Osborne Cross's 1849 expedition examined the cataract and adopted the name Great Shoshone Falls in place of Canadian Falls; later measurements by Frederick W. Lander and the efforts of Charles Walgamott, who acquired land around the canyon and built a hotel in 1886, helped establish it as a tourist destination, while a 1932 land donation by F.J. and Martha Adams to the City of Twin Falls preserved the site for public use. The falls and canyon were shaped within the Snake River Plain, a volcanic plateau built by lava flows over millions of years, and dramatically enlarged by the Bonneville Flood about 11,000 years ago when Lake Bonneville burst through Red Rock Pass and sent a massive wall of water through the Snake River Canyon, scouring rock, carving alcoves, depositing gravel bars, and widening the canyon near present-day Twin Falls. Below the falls, gold discovered in 1869 triggered a brief rush of Anglo miners, followed by Chinese miners who arrived by 1870, acquired claims, reworked tailings, and by the mid-1870s numbered as many as 500 in the area; despite hostility, immigration restrictions, and the eventual exhaustion of placer deposits, they became a major part of Idaho Territory's mining population and contributed significantly to the economy and development of south-central Idaho before most left by the end of the century.