This spot on the river was used as a ford by pioneers. Here in 1853 the party of Henry Longmire, seeking to traverse the valley to Olympia, lost a portion of its wagons and many personal belongings in the turbulent stream.

A charter was granted to J. T. Hicklin in 1863 to “operate a ferry across the Yakima at a location somewhere between the mouth of the Wenas River and a point three miles below the debouchment of the Naches.” Hicklin, who in some manner acquired the nickname of “Jumping Tadpole,” operated his little ferry profitably until the spring of 1867, when the river, rising to heights never before known, swept the craft upon the rocks below.