The town is famous for the nearby Reichenbach Falls, a spectacular waterfall that was the setting for the fictional presumed death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes.
Doubleday had previously produced a statue of Holmes for the town of Meiringen in Switzerland, below the Reichenbach Falls from which the detective fell to his death in the story "The Final Problem".
Inhabitants of Meiringen are still grateful to Doyle and Holmes for ensuring the enduring worldwide fame of their falls and considerably promoting tourism to the town.
It was the first British ascent, made by John Frederick Hardy, William Mathews, Benjamin St John Attwood-Mathews, J.C.W. Ellis and Edward Shirley Kennedy, accompanied by the guides Auguste Simond and Jean Baptiste Croz from Chamonix, Johann Jaun the Elder from Meiringen, Aloys Bortis from Fiesch and the porter Alexander Guntern from Biel in Goms.
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson cross the pass on their way to Meiringen, where Sherlock Holmes has his famous meeting with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls.
It is flanked to the north by the main road to Meiringen, the river, and the Brünig railway line.
Both Oberried am Brienzersee station and Ebligen station are on the Zentralbahn railway company's Brünig line, and are served by hourly Regio trains running between Interlaken and Meiringen.
The 24-year old English mountaineer William Penhall and his Meiringen guide Andreas Maurer were killed by an avalanche high up on the Wetterhorn on 3 August 1882.