American Indian legend held that a powerful evil spirit in the form of a tremendous beast with enormous tusks ravaged the Sweetwater Valley and prevented Indians from hunting and camping. A holy man told the tribes that the Great Spirit wanted them to destroy the beast, and they attacked from mountain passes and ravines, shooting countless arrows into it. Enraged, the beast thrust upward with its tusks, ripped a gap in the mountain, and disappeared forever. In 1841, Fr. Pierre-Jean DeSmet, S.J., wrote that travelers had named the spot the Devil's Entrance, or Devil's Gate, though he thought it should have been called Heaven's Avenue. Goldfish 49'er J.G. Bruff wrote that some of the boys climbed the rock on the north side of the Gate, fired pistols, and threw down rocks, enjoying the strong reverberation, and that he made a careful sketch of the remarkable gorge. Devil's Gate is a 370-foot-high, 1,500-foot-long fissure carved over centuries by the Sweetwater River, and it became a major landmark on the Oregon Trail, a pleasant change for weary travelers after the four-day trek across the rough, dry country from the North Platte River.