Willie Keil was 19 when he died in Missouri. His father, Dr. William Keil, was on his way to the Willapa Valley to start a religious colony of Germans and Swiss pioneers. Dr. Keil promised Willie that he could ride in the lead wagon of the wagon train, and he kept that promise by placing Willie’s body in a metal coffin filled with alcohol and bringing him to this site where he was buried on November 26, 1855.