The Beckwourth Trail in Golden Valley led around the western slope of the red buttes and over sandy, stony, rolling country, as Jacob S. Hayden wrote on August 18, 1852. Behind this location are remnants of Nevada's first paved highway, the Three Flags Highway, constructed between 1919 and 1923. It connected with Canada and Mexico, received the first federal funding subsidy to improve travel in the USA, and in Nevada ran from Topaz Lake to the California border west of here. The route today is designated as Highway 395.