The Spokane people have lived in what is now Audubon/Downriver for hundreds of years. They fished and camped along the banks of the Spokane river and gathered edible crops near a natural spring now known as Drumheller Springs. A trail passed through the neighborhood, giving its name to the North Indian Trail and South Indian Trail neighborhoods to the north. With the arrival of European settlers, prospectors and pioneers began using the trail as well, as it connected Spokane House at the mouth of the Little Spokane River with the settlement of Spokan Falls at the Falls of the Spokane River in present-day Downtown Spokane.
