In the first half of the 19C, pack and wagon trains used this site, with its spring-fed creek and tranquil meadows, as a campsite and watering hole, as they headed west along the Spanish Trail. James Wilson, an army sergeant based at Fort Mohave, and his partner, George Anderson, lay claim to the property in 1876 and named it Sand Stone Ranch. After surviving a long string of owners-including Howard Hughes-the ranch became a state park in 1971.