The first recorded European to visit the volcano was Peter Skene Ogden, a trapper who reached the crater in 1826. In 1855, the volcano's namesake, John Strong Newberry, a surgeon and geologist for the Williamson and Abbot survey party, visited central Oregon while mapping the local area for the Pacific Railroad, but never visited the volcano. Paulina Lake, Paulina Creek, and Paulina Peak are named after Paulina, a Snake Indian chief who headed raiding parties against whites during the 1850s and 1860s before he was pursued and shot by settler Howard Maupin. Near the end of the 19th century, the Lava River Cave was used by the hunter Leander Dillman to store perishable foods. The name Mount Newberry was proposed by Israel Russell, who visited the area in 1903, though the name did not come into use. Instead, it was known as Newberry Crater until it was renamed to the Newberry Volcano in the 1930s by geologist Howel Williams, a name which was formally accepted in 2003 when geologist Larry Chitwood supported it through the official geographic naming process.