City of Rocks Historic Resources Study

The flow of emigrant traffic through the City of Rocks ebbed after 1852 and virtually ceased following the 1869 completion of the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad. [116] The City of Rocks remained an important transportation center, however, serving as a relay point and rest stop on the mail and stage route connecting the railhead at Kelton, Utah with the boom mining communities of the Boise Basin.

Since the founding of Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Alternate to the Overland Trail had served as a freight route connecting the interior basin with the Pacific coast. Beginning in September of 1850, George Chorpenning and Absalom Woodward's government-sponsored mail wagons ran from Fort Bridger to Sacramento, by way of the Salt Lake Alternate and Granite Pass. [117] The route was abandoned in September of 1853, in response to harsh winters and Indian attacks, yet resumed briefly in 1858, when the Mormon War disrupted the San Bernardino route. Concord coaches or four-horse mud wagons passed through the region once a week, from July to December, 1858, when the route was again abandoned in favor of a central Nevada route west of Provo. [118]

Beginning ca. 1860, a local version of the famous Pony Express also ran through the City of Rocks, along a route that extended from Boise to Brigham City, Utah, by way of Rock Creek, Oakley, Goose Creek, City of Rocks stage station, and the Raft River Headwaters, and Kelton Pass. [119]

The discovery of gold in the Boise Basin in 1862 created a new market for Salt Lake goods, which in turn, resulted in a modification in the abandoned Chorpenning & Woodward route. Circa 1864, Ben Holladay of the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company initiated a run from the railroad at Kelton, Utah, to Boise Basin mining communities. Holladay's coaches traveled to the City of Rocks region by way of the Salt Lake Alternate (Figure 8). Here they turned north, rather than west, proceeding over Lyman Pass (a gentle breach of the Albion Mountains), to Rock Creek along the Snake River. John Hailey of Boise purchased the Boise to Kelton route from C. M. Lockwood in 1868. [120]

Figure 8. Concord Gulch (Idaho State Historical Society photograph #69-161.1) Concord Coaches "revolutionized western travel... [They were] far better suited to journeys across plains and deserts than any earlier vehicle. The wheels were heavy, with broad iron tires that would not sink in soft sand, and were set wide apart to keep the stage from tipping. The iron-reinforced wooden body was swung on leather thorough braces which absorbed some of the worst shocks and was provided with leather curtains... The gaudily painted red or green vehicles were pulled by four galloping horses or half a dozen scampering mules... (Billington, Westward Expansion, A History of the American Frontier, pp. 637-638.)

The 240-mile trip took approximately 40 hours, with stage stations strategically located 10 to 15 miles apart at sites possessing sufficient water and grass for the horses. "Home Stations" were situated approximately 50 to 60 miles apart and provided lodging for drivers and a meal for passengers.

The City of Rocks Home Station was located at the head of Emigrant Canyon, adjacent to the same spring that had induced the emigrants to establish camp. Chorpenning & Woodward may have constructed the station as early as 1858 when they "stocked [their] route past City of Rocks with stations every twenty miles or so (Figure 9)." [121]

Figure 9. The Kelton Road, Kelton, Utah to Boise, Idaho (HRA 1996, from David Chance, "Historical Sketch of the Kelton Road," 1993 draft manuscript prepared for the National Park Service Pacific Northwest Region.) (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

By the 1870s, "Mr. and Mrs. William Trotter" served five meals a day at the City of Rocks station. Driver C. S. Walgamott wrote that "the buildings were of logs and, as it was handy for material, they were built commodiously but with low ceilings. The sitting room, or barroom was about thirty feet long east and west by some fourteen feet wide. The large fireplace in the west end, the dining room, kitchen, and three bedrooms were as commodious." Beds, prepared for snow-bound passengers, were said to have been clean and comfortable and the red napkins on the tables "suggestive of everything clean and luxurious." [122]

Hailey and his successors ran the stage through the City of Rocks, between May and October, until at least 1881. During the winter months, when deep snow blocked Lyman Pass, Halley routed through traffic along the Albion freight route; intermediate service to the Goose Creek area, however, remained in effect. [123] Walgamott described that winter routine:

When I peeked out the window in the morning the snow was sifting along with the wind flurries, in places forming great drifts; and the side of the mountain looked like a rough sea of snow... I took my seat on the outrigger and at certain places indicated by the driver I would poke a willow down into the snow, just leaving the brush or part of the willow sticking up. When we encountered a drift and the leaders could plunge through we would always make it. If it was too deep the horses would always lie down, and then I would take off my fur coat and get among their legs and tramp the snow solid around them. . . We would travel east toward the Oakley station until we met the eastbound stage, which would be a coach. Here the passengers, mail, and express from the sled would be transferred to the coach, which would be turned back; and the driver who came with me would go on and I would return with the eastern driver, the eastbound passengers, and the mail. [124]

The Kelton to Boise stage route was largely abandoned by 1883, when the Oregon Short Line Railroad reached the Snake River corridor, north of the City of Rocks. In June of 1890, however, Elba resident Frederick Ottley "drove stage" between Kelton and Albion, indicating that the stage continued to service those communities isolated from the rail lines. However, this local route made no use of the City of Rocks station. [125] Circa 1921, homesteader Joseph Moon dismantled the outbuildings, using the logs in construction of his homestead. [126]