Named for Peter Lassen, a native of Denmark who received a Mexican land grant in 1844 for 22,000 acres near Vina where Deer Creek enters the Sacramento River, the Lassen Trail grew from his effort to direct emigrants to his Bosquejo Rancho and prospective Benton City. In 1847, after persuading a party of emigrants from Missouri to leave the better established California Trail, Lassen led them from the Applegate Trail just south of Goose Lake in present-day Modoc County and then southwest along the Pit River. Because he had not traveled the route before, the party soon met severe difficulties in Pit River Canyon, converted ten ox-drawn wagons into lighter carts, and struggled south through steep hills and thick timber while seeking a way around Mount Lassen and nearby peaks. As winter approached, the emigrants became discouraged and faced starvation, but a large party of gold seekers from Oregon, traveling south on the Applegate Trail, found Lassen's wagon tracks, followed them, overtook the exhausted group, shared food, and broke trail the rest of the way to Lassen's ranch, which they reached near the end of October. Although Lassen had opened a new route to California, his wagon train suffered badly, the journey took months longer than the shorter Donner Pass and Carson Pass routes, and he earned the ill will of those who followed him along with a dubious reputation as a trail blazer. The trail briefly gained prominence beginning in August 1849, when a party of forty-niners took the Lassen cut-off believing it offered a shorter road to the gold fields. Later travelers followed the increasing tracks across the desert, drawn by an inaccurate sign posted where the Lassen-Applegate trail left the Humboldt River in Nevada that promised only 110 miles to the diggings. They suffered heavily from dwindling grass, the long distance, and early snowfall near Lassen Peak in October and November, leaving many wagons stranded until relief parties from the Sacramento Valley rescued the last stragglers and brought them to Lassen Ranch. About 8000 people entered California by this route that year, but news of their hardships spread and few afterward chose it.