Although the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Shoshone Indians in 1805-06 they did not pass through the Shoshone Falls area. The 1811 Wilson Price Hunt Expedition, whose goal was to scout routes for the growing fur trade, traveled down the Snake River as far as Caldron Linn, a wild rapids located near present-day Murtaugh, Idaho. There, where the river drops into the precipitous Snake River Canyon, a canoe capsized and one of Hunt’s Canadian boatmen was drowned. Although the party explored the canyon for several miles downstream, Hunt’s journal does not mention any waterfalls as large as Shoshone Falls. Hunt then split the group to make foraging easier and they basically walked out of Idaho. The routes they pioneered would become part of the Oregon Trail, which would later bring many emigrants from the eastern United States to the Shoshone Falls area.