By the time mountain men began to arrive in the late 1820s and settlers began to arrive again in the 1860s the people of the Cornville area were a mixed community of Apache (Dil-ze'e) and Yavapai (Wipukepaya), though the Apache are thought to have been more numerous on the east side of the Verde River. The area that is now lower Oak Creek was more or less on the border of the area occupied by the Dil-ze'e Chein-chii-ii (or Red Rock Clan) and Yaa-go-gain (White Land Clan) The US army gathered the Yavapai and Apache people in the area and in 1875 removed them in a tragic and brutal march and exile to the San Carlos Reservation in Eastern Arizona, but many Dilze'e remained in hiding in the Lower Oak Creek and adjoining White Hills area As late as 1876, numerous Dil-ze'e still lived on or near Lower Oak Creek.