Rock Creek Stage Station
Near Twin Falls, Idaho
Ten miles south of Twin Falls, Rock Creek was one of the most important stops on the Kelton Road, the southern Idaho emigrant and freight route that connected Salt Lake City to the Oregon Trail network in the eighteen sixties and seventies. A toll bridge, a stage station, and later a post office made Rock Creek a genuine waypoint where travelers could rest, water animals, and resupply before crossing the high desert to the west or the lava fields to the east. The site also carried some historical infamy: it was at Rock Creek Station in Nebraska, a different location with the same common name, where a young James Butler Hickok, later known as Wild Bill, shot David McCanles in a deadly confrontation in eighteen sixty-one. The Idaho Rock Creek is quieter in legend but longer in use: it served local traffic for years afterward, long after the Oregon Trail emigrants had given way to homesteaders and supply wagons feeding the growing ranching economy of southern Idaho.
