Narcissa Whitman, a trail-blazing missionary of the frontier West, crossed the American continent on horseback in 1836 with Eliza Spalding as the first white women to do so, traveling with the Protestant Oregon Mission, which included Dr. Marcus Whitman, Rev. Henry Spalding, their new brides, and William Gray. They went from New York to Otoe Indian Agency at Bellevue, Nebraska, joined an American Fur Company caravan led by Thomas Fitzpatrick, and from the Green River rendezvous continued west with traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In November 1847, Narcissa Whitman, her husband, and eleven others were massacred by Cayuse Indians at their Walla Walla mission, now a National Historic Site. The missionaries passed this point in June 1836. In May 1847, the Mormon Pioneers also passed here on their way from Winter Quarters, present North Omaha, to Salt Lake Valley, calling these formations Ancient Bluff Ruins. Beginning with the California Gold Rush in 1849, this Mormon Pioneer Trail became known to emigrants bound for the West Coast as the Council Bluffs Road.