The valley's first recorded inhabitants were the Susquehannocks, followed by the Lenape and other tribes. The Great Shamokin Path crossed the creek near its mouth, where Larry Burt, the first Euro-American settler and the man who gave the creek its present name, also lived by 1769. In the 19th century, the creek and its watershed were a center for logging and related industries, including 53 sawmills, grist mills, leather tanneries, coal and iron mines. A 1903 newspaper article claimed "No other stream in the country had so many mills in so small a territory". For transportation, a plank road ran along much of the creek for decades, and two "paper railroads" were planned, but never built.