Lolo Hot Springs was an important stopping place for the Corps of Discovery and had long been known to Native peoples who traveled the Lolo Trail across the Bitterroot Mountains.

Lolo Hot Springs. On their way west, members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the warm pools now called Lolo Hot Springs on September 13, 1805, along the Lolo Trail a day's travel west of Travelers' Rest in the Bitterroot Valley. Clark wrote that the springs were so hot he could "not bare" to keep his finger in the water at first, and he noticed many game trails from elk and deer and what he called an "Indian bath" near one of the pools. The springs lie along an old Native trail route later known as the Lolo Trail, which Nez Perce and other tribes had used for generations to travel between the plains and river valleys for hunting, fishing, trade, and gathering food. The expedition stopped again at Lolo Hot Springs on June 29, 1806, on their way back east, camping and bathing there before continuing toward Travelers' Rest.