The site commemorates the Whitmans, their role in establishing the Oregon Trail, and the challenges encountered when two cultures meet.

In 1836, a small group of Presbyterian missionaries traveled with the annual fur trapper's caravan into Oregon Country.

Among the group, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding became the first white women to travel across the continent.

[3] The Mission became an important stop along the Oregon Trail from 1843–1847, and passing immigrants added to the tension.

The deaths of the Whitmans shocked the country, prompting Congress to make Oregon a US territory, and precipitated the Cayuse War.