Beacon Rock was first described and named by Captains Lewis and Clark on October 31, 1805, enroute to the Pacific Ocean. Henry J. Biddle purchased Beacon Rock in 1915 to preserve it for posterity and completed the trail in 1918. His son Spencer and daughter Rebecca Biddle Wood gave this historic landmark to the State of Washington in 1935 to create Beacon Rock State Park. An ancestor, Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, edited the first (1814) edition of the Lewis and Clark Journals.