Ross McCloud

Together they operated an early inn in the (now-disappeared) mining settlement of Portuguese Flat, California on the upper Sacramento River.

The McClouds purchased the rights of the Lockhart brothers to property at the site now known as Upper Soda Springs in present-day Dunsmuir, California, where they expanded an early wayside hostel into a more substantial inn.

By 1860, mule train and later stagecoach traffic between California's Central Valley, Yreka, California and Oregon had increased, and the McClouds (and their business partner Isaac Fry) built and operated a toll bridge over the Sacramento River at Upper Soda Springs, as well as increasing the size of the inn.

The McClouds eventually sold their interest in the Upper Soda Springs inn, and moved to a ranch near present-day Gazelle, California, where Ross died in 1868.

McLeod's expedition of 1829-1830 spent several weeks during that winter trapped by heavy snow near the headwaters of the McCloud River.