For thousands of years, people have traveled past the Big Bend in the Yuba River, a natural migration route later used by Native Americans making petroglyphs in the granite, emigrant wagons, steam engines, early automobiles on the Lincoln Highway, and eventually interstate traffic. The first wagon train to pass here was the Stevens Murphy Townsend Party in 1844, led by Caleb Greenwood, who was over 80 years old, and Elizabeth Yuba Murphy, one of the first American babies born in California, was born here as part of that party. Other wagon trains regularly followed to this rest stop on the river. The Dutch Flat Donner Lake Wagon toll road carried commercial traffic and helped build the railroad. The Lincoln Highway came through in 1913, and in its Highway 40 period Big Bend served as a resting stop with inns, a gas station, and a grocery store, including the Trailsyde Lodge and gas station across the street and the Big Bend Inn on the site now occupied by the ranger station.