 When Lewis and Clark visited the area in 1806, the Clackamas tribe consisted of about 1,800 people living in 11 villages.Epidemics of smallpox, malaria, and measles reduced this population to 88 by 1851, and in 1855 the tribe signed a treaty surrendering its lands, including Johnson Creek.By the middle of the 19th century, the European American newcomers had begun to remove vegetation, build sawmills, fell trees, fill wetlands, and farm in the fertile soil along Johnson Creek.