At Emigrant Springs in the Blue Mountains, Oregon Trail emigrants faced scarce water in steep ravines, widely scattered forage, and thick timber that made it easy to lose livestock and even people, while many also labored to cut timber and clear rough roads for those who followed. After weary months across dry plains, overlanders often reached this campground in August, September, or October to find shelter among evergreen trees, but also cold rain, fatigue, and a dark, frightening forest alive with panthers and wolves. Long before emigrants arrived, Native Americans used this well-watered site, and encounters here, including visits by Nez Perce people, reflected generally positive but culturally distinct relations. In the twentieth century, Ezra Meeker, himself an emigrant of 1852, worked to preserve the memory of the Oregon Trail by traveling its route repeatedly, placing monuments, seeking lost segments of the trail, promoting a national highway, and inspiring later commemorations at this place.