Paisley was once the site of a seasonal Native American settlement, where Northern Paiute and Klamath Indians came to the Chewaucan Marsh and River to harvest local resources, especially the wapato, Silgittaria cuneata, a plant with arrowhead-shaped leaves and an edible tuber called chewa in the Klamath language, for which the Chewaucan area is named. M.M. Gillespie brought cattle to the area in 1871 and started the valley's first ranch. Ranching and logging quickly became the primary source of income for early residents, with logs harvested from nearby mountain ridges and brought here for milling. Despite the many ups and downs of the timber industry, logging continues to be important to the area's economy. Irrigated crops, fed by water diverted from the Chewaucan River or pumped from aquifers, provided grass, hay, grains, and supplemental income to area residents, and the abundance of surface water allowed local farmers to avoid many of the hardships faced by dryland farmers elsewhere in Oregon's Outback.