Early Oregon Trail emigrants who crossed the Blue Mountains traveled north to re-provision at the Whitman Mission or Fort Walla Walla, then either floated down the Columbia River in Hudson's Bay Company bateaux or Indian canoes or followed the river's rugged south bank. After the destruction of the Whitman Mission in 1847, many instead followed the Umatilla River, where the road forked a few miles east of this site: one branch went down the Columbia from the mouth of the Umatilla, while the other crossed the arid Columbia Plateau. The plateau route was shorter than the south bank route and less perilous than traveling by water, but it offered scarce water, with emigrants finding it at intervals such as Butter Creek, Well Spring, Willow Creek, and the John Day River, and enduring heat, dust, wind, and hard travel. The Columbia River itself was once a raging torrent with dangerous rapids, while the south bank was sandy, rocky, barren, and poor in firewood and grass, so hardship marked every choice of route. Even after each day's journey, emigrants still faced demanding camp work. By the late 1840s, emigration had seriously depleted game, grazing, water, and firewood along the trail, and some Indian tribes demanded tribute for passage and use of resources. In 1851 the Bureau of Indian Affairs established the Umatilla Indian Agency near Echo, whose building became a landmark and supply stop, and for some travelers it was the first frame house seen since leaving the Missouri River, encouraging them near the end of their journey. Emigrants also depended heavily on guidebooks and on information from people coming from Oregon, sometimes discovering how little they knew about the region ahead.