An old emigrant road ran west across Camas Prairie and then descended to the valley below before rejoining the Oregon Trail 28 miles west of here. Discovered by Donald Mackenzie's fur trade party in 1820, the route came into use for emigrant wagons in 1852. Indian hostility along the regular Oregon Trail to the south led Timothy Goodale to bring a large emigrant party of Idaho pioneers this way in 1862, after which the road became known as Goodale's Cutoff.