Nez Perce people
The land that is now the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest was first occupied by the Nez Perce people around 1400 CE. The area was the summer home of the Joseph Band of the Nez Perce tribe. The Cayuse, Shoshone and Bannock tribes arrived in the area some time later. The native people hunted deer, elk and bighorn sheep in the Wallowa Valley and surrounding mountains. The first European settlers arrived in the Wallowa Valley in 1860. In 1887, a gang of horse thieves murdered 34 Chinese miners in Chinese Massacre Cove along the Snake River.