This small stream a tributary to Susan River is approximately ten miles in length. For a brief period it was originally known as Smith’s Creek, who and why it was so named such we may never be known.
Another peculiarity is the spelling of Piute. Back in the 1850s and 1860s that was how the Anglo settlers of the western Great Basin spelt the name for the Native American tribe now referred to as Paiute.
Piute Creek was also the source for the original water supply for Susanville. It would be replaced with what is now known as Cady Springs in the Susan River Canyon.
In 1935, the Red River Lumber Company completed its railroad logging line known as the Piute that traversed a portion of the canyon the creek flows through. Just above Desmond Meadows, the Piute line crossed Piute Creek. In an effort to save money, Red River decided to forgo a wooden trestle, and substitute an earthen fill. It was a rather substantial one at that, being over twenty-five feet tall. The winter of 1937-38, was one for the record books. By the end of March, 1938, the spring run-off was in earnest. The earthen fill at Desmond Meadows was equipped with a culvert to handle the stream flow. It was no match for this type of heavy water flow and then the culvert became blocked with debris, creating a substantial reservoir. As one eyewitness observed, this newly created lake extended back 300 feet from the fill with an estimated depth over twenty feet. On April 9, the fill breached, sending a wall of water downstream creating havoc in its path and washing away segments of the Piute railroad tracks into the fields of its dairy property now known as Susanville Ranch Park. In the aftermath, Red River decided not to repair the destroyed trackage. Red River took its time salvaging the line, since the company had given consideration to abandon railroad logging. In the 1940s, the abandoned railroad grade was converted into the Paul Bunyan Logging road.
