This marker indicates the path of the Mohave Indian Trail, a centuries-old trade route linking the tribes of the Colorado River to those of the Pacific Ocean.

It also memorializes two noted early travelers, Father Francisco Garcés, who in 1776 became the first known missionary explorer to travel across San Bernardino County and leave a written record of his experiences and Jedediah Smith, who in 1826, was the first known Anglo-American to use the Mohave Trail.

[3][4] In 1829–30 Santa Fe, New Mexico, merchant Antonio Armijo led a trade party of 60 men and 100 mules to California, opening the Old Spanish Trail, following most of the route pioneered by those two pioneer explorers.

Armijo did not cross over the mountains by the Mojave Trail route over Monument Peak but followed a route he called "San Bernardino Canyon" from the upper Mojave River west through Cajon Pass and down Crowder Canyon and Cajon Canyon, known to the vaqueros of the San Bernardino de Sena Estancia who had come to their aid with food.

[5] The marker at the site reads: Erected 1931 by San Bernardino County Historical Society.