The presence of man from 3,000 B.C. to the gold rush days is recorded on High Rock Canyon walls. Prehistoric man left his rock shelters, campsites and petroglyphs in this historically rich, remote, volcanic area.

Northern Paiute Indians roamed these lands when John C. Fremont first journeyed through High Rock Canyon in 1843. The Applegate brothers blazed their trail from Oregon through the canyon to the Humboldt River in 1846. Peter Lassen partially followed this route in 1848, and gold seekers crowded the trail in 1849.