Native Americans traveled and camped in the Soda Springs area for centuries before emigrants used the Oregon Trail. Sheep Rock, also called Soda Point, marked the junction of the main route of the Oregon-California Trail and the Hudspeth Cutoff, a route often mentioned in emigrant diaries. The cutoff diverged three-quarters of a mile west of here, crossed the lava-covered valley, passed over Fish Creek divide and the Portneuf Range south of Lava Hot Springs, and ended at the City of Rocks, where it rejoined the California Trail. From Sheep Rock, the main branch of the Oregon-California Trail headed northwest toward Fort Hall. On July 19, 1849, Benoni Morgan Hudspeth, captain of a wagon train with 70 wagons and 250 people, led his group west along what became the Hudspeth Cutoff. Guided by John Meyers, they opened a new wagon route to California that shortened the more established northern route to Fort Hall. Hudspeth and Meyers had scouted the area beforehand, and Hudspeth knew it from traveling with John C. Fremont on his 1843 expedition to the Great Salt Lake area. Instead of going around the mountains, they went due west over them. This new 132-mile route joined the California Trail west of the Raft River, and after the Gold Rush of 1849, most California-bound traffic used the cutoff because of the abundance of forage for animals.