Before the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805, few Europeans or European-Americans had visited the Sandy River basin. One of the first documented visits to the upper Sandy occurred in 1838, when Daniel Lee drove cattle from the Willamette Valley to Wascopam via the Indian trail over Lolo Pass. By 1840, pioneers were using the trail to cross the Cascades, and the Barlow Road, following another old trail, opened in 1846. One of its branches ran along the Devil's Backbone, a ridge separating the Sandy and Little Sandy basins. A few of these newcomers settled along the Sandy River.