The area was known as Burn or Sauk Portage to early surveyors and visitors from towns along the Puget Sound coastline. A group of railroad surveyors for the Northern Pacific Railway arrived in modern-day Darrington in 1870 while plotting the potential route for a railroad crossing the Cascades to Lake Chelan, but ultimately chose Stampede Pass to the south. The North Stillaguamish Valley was nicknamed "Starve Out" by early settlers, who arrived alone and underprepared for the area's conditions, leading to several difficult winters. Soldiers sent to the area by the valley settlers threatened to evict the Sauk-Suiattles were threatened with eviction; this did not occur as the settlers' claim that the SAuk-Suiattle had attacked them hostile people was determined to unfounded. The tribe later hired surveyors to record their claims to the eastern side of the Sauk River, lands that currently comprise their Indian reservation.