Automotive history was made here June 20, 1905, when the first car to cross the Cascade Mountains conquered the Santiam Wagon Road. Dwight Huss drove ‘Old Scout’, a 1904 Oldsmobile curved dash runabout, from New York to Portland in 44 days. ‘Old Scout’ was the first car to travel North America from East to West, the first car on the Oregon Trail and the first car to enter Portland on its own power from out of state. Dwight’s son, John, dedicated the restored wagon road to antique cars, horseback riders and hikers on July 7, 1995.

The pass located east of here through the Cascade Range was once called Wiley Pass after Andrew Wiley. Wiley with other Willamette Valley pioneers explored it in 1859 while searching for a route to move their livestock to the grass lands of central Oregon for summer grazing.

In 1864 the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountain Military Wagon Road Company was formed and submitted plans to the U.S. Government for a Military Road to be built along the route as far east as the mouth of the Malheur River.

The Land Grant of 1866 included 861,512 acres for the road builder. Little road was never constructed and much of the land reverted to the State. In 1868 a wagon road was completed from the valley to near Sisters and became a Toll Road known as the Santiam Wagon Road.

Few Oregon communities have had a more colorful history than Scottsburg. It was named for Levi Scott, a pioneer of 1844, who homesteaded here and founded the town in 1850. There was a lower town at the head of tidewater on the Umpqua River which became the site of business houses and mills.

A mile upstream was the upper town, the distributing and shipping point for the mining regions and communities of southern Oregon. As many as 500 pack animals could be seen loading here at one time.

The decline of the community began with the opening of ports nearer the market points in southern Oregon and northern California and the railroad further inland. In December 1861 a great flood wiped out the lower town. Here in April 1854 was published the first newspaper in southern Oregon, The Umpqua Weekly Gazette.