First People of the Skykomish Valley, called the Skykomish, the extended group of families for whom the river was named. The Treaty of Point Elliot, signed in January 1855 at Mukilteo, created a single reservation at Tulalip (northwest of Everett) for the indigenous peoples living along the Snohomish, Skykomish, and Snoqualmie rivers. That was the beginning of the end for the Skykomish People for there are no people left who identify themselves as purely Skykomish. Seven village sites existed between present-day Monroe and Index at the time of white contact in the 1850s. Easternmost was the village near the confluence of the south and north forks of the Skykomish River.
Here the members of the Skykomish group were called the fern people, not surprising in an area with an average of about 100 inches of rain per year. A large potlatch house was located here in a permanent winter village.
Elders of the tribes that settled at Tulalip told anthropologist Colin Tweddell that "The Index people were the genuine Skykomish tribe, rather wild; they would come up in canoes and suddenly be gone, hidden in the rocks.