The reach of the Umpqua River between Scottsburg and Mill Creek represents the historical head of navigation and a primary gateway to 19th-century Oregon. Founded in 1850, Scottsburg became the busiest port between San Francisco and Portland, serving as the critical transfer point where ocean-going freight was moved to pack trains destined for the interior gold mines. This industrial era saw the river bustling with shallow-draft steamboats until a catastrophic flood in 1861 destroyed the lower town. Nearby, Mill Creek takes its name from the early timber mills that processed the region's dense Douglas fir, and its lower reaches now serve as the drainage for Loon Lake. Today, this stretch of the river is preserved for recreation at the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park and the Umpqua Wayside, which offers a paved launch for paddlers and boaters. This launch site provides access to scenic, tidally influenced flatwaters where modern kayakers can explore the same routes used by the "mosquito fleet" steamboats and the ancestral Lower Umpqua people who inhabited these riverbanks for millennia.