Crossing a branch of Muck Creek, in the 1940s the highway wound through a dreary area of stumps. Amid the black chaos of old logging waste and the scrubby brush of new growth are magnificent stands of Scotch broom. The highway, winding in great loops, then drops into a shallow valley.

It was named Douglas River by Puget’s Sound Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of Hudson’s Bay Company, when these fur traders farmed and ran livestock in this area. It was changed to the present name by American settlers.