The Coeur d'Alene River, moderately visible from this vista point, helped popularize the Sacred Heart Mission by providing steamboat access for outlying communities. For one dollar, passengers could take the 27 mile river excursion from Coeur d'Alene Lake and, upon arriving, experience the beauty of the Mission in the wilderness. In 1877, Mission Landing became the transfer point where freight and passengers moved from the steamers to the rail cars of the newly constructed narrow gauge railway serving the silver mining district towns of Kellogg and Wallace.