 In the 1920s and 1930s, the Forest Service built trails and a few cabins in the remote area, and during World War II, the U.S. government constructed a narrow mining road from the Klamath River to the chromite deposits on the south slope of the Red Buttes.In 1945, a single-engine airplane crashed in the Red Buttes Wilderness.A bronze plaque along the Butte Fork Trail marks the grave of three victims on board.