In 1811 the first white expedition to pass through this area of the Snake River and the lower end of the Raft River Valley was the Wilson Price Hunt expedition from St. Louis to Astoria, though the area was already well known to French and British trappers. The California Cutoff was first proven feasible in 1826 by Peter Skene Ogden and his Snake Brigade, who crossed Granite Pass, and Joseph Chiles determined in 1842 that a wagon route was possible as he wandered from California to Fort Hall. In 1843 Chiles, guided by Joseph Walker and accompanied by eight wagons and thirty emigrants, turned southwest here and headed to California, and Walker defined the California Wagon Trail from here to the Humboldt and to California. John C. Fremont camped on the Raft River on September 26, 1843. From 1843 to 1848 the California Cutoff was the main route from here southwest to the City of Rocks, and between 1841 and 1860 about 500,000 people passed this point. Before 1848 more than 100,000 emigrants turned here on their journey, and the route continued in use until the railroads connected in 1869. This place became a true decision point where some travelers finally chose between Oregon and California, while others took the Salt Lake Cutoff into the Salt Lake Valley. Returning members of the Mormon Battalion, traveling east, pioneered a route to Salt Lake, Addison Pratt of the Mormon Battalion named Twin Sisters in the City of Rocks, and this route was used by 25,000 travelers in 1849 and 1850, with thousands more passing through until 1869. An estimated one-third of the forty-niners traveled this way.