The Tshimakain Mission started on August 29, 1838, with the arrival of Presbyterian missionaries Cushing and Myra Fairbanks Eells and Elkanah and Mary Richardson Walker to the area along Chamokane Creek at the community of Ford, Washington. Fort Colvile Chief Factor Archibald McDonald recommended the area to Eells and Walker on their first visit to the area. On April 23, 1838 after traveling to Independence, Missouri, the Eells, Walkers, William Henry and Mary Augusta Gray, Asa B. and Sarah Smith, and Andrew Rodgers, departed for the Oregon County with a Hudson Bay Company fur trader caravan to the Rendezvous. They arrived at Waiilatpu and the Whitman Mission on August 29, 1838.