Rock Point was a favorite ambush site of the Rogue River tribes from the earliest years of Euro-American exploration in the 1830s-40s. Miners, pack trains and early settlers traveling the old Oregon-California Trail (later part of the Applegate Trail) had to pass between the river and a steep hillside that pressed in close to the south bank, making them vulnerable to attack. The spur of that hill was carved away when Interstate 5 was built.