[1] They inhabited the meadows of Sams Walker Day Use Site, near Skamania, Washington, and St.
An interpretive sign at Sams Walker states that the Watlata lived in earth-sheltered cedar plank homes.
As there were also other tribes lived at or near the cascades and the people were very changeable due to the location being a popular fishing spot, it was impossible to identify them with certainty.
In 1829, the Native Americans of the region suffered an epidemic which was called "ague fever," of unknown nature, which killed in a single summer, some four-fifths of the population.
After the epidemic, the Watlala seemed to have been the only remaining tribe, the remnants of the others having probably united under that name, though they were commonly called Cascade Indians by the whites.