 Settlers began to trickle into the Kittitas Valley with the opening of the Snoqualmie Wagon Road in 1867, which approximated the modern-day route of Interstate 90 past Thorp, from Seattle to Ellensburg.Among these first adventurous individuals were F. M. Thorp and Charles Splawn, whose families had united with the marriage of Charles Splawn, a brother of Senator Andrew Jackson Splawn of Yakima, to Thorp's daughter Dulcena in 1863.In 1868, they became the first permanent white settlers in the Kittitas Valley, building the Thorp and Splawn homesteads at the head of Taneum Canyon on the banks of Taneum Creek.