Rock Creek Memorial

While riding down the road yesterday, we saw this memorial which read...

"In memory of those who passed this way to win and hold the west on the Ft. Halleck - Ft. Laramie Road. Frontier town of Rock Creek, 10 miles northeast.

This is what I've been able to find out thus far -

The Rock Creek stage station, also known as Arlington or Rock Dale, was built in 1860 and later destroyed by Indians. An emigrant in 1865 wrote that Rock Creek had the appearance of a small town, with the station buildings, a store, and several houses. One of the original buildings still standing on Main Street is a large two-story blockhouse. The lower level housed a blacksmith shop, with the upper floor serving over the years as a bunkhouse, saloon, dancehall, even a school.

Rock Creek, a swift moving deep creek, had a log toll bridge which emigrant wagons had to pay $.75 to cross. The town, itself, was founded in 1867. The railroad reached it in 1878 and the town became an important junction for freighters and stages heading north. The stage trip to Custer City took three days. At one time the town had 5 saloons, 2 hotels, the railroad depot, post office, the stage station and two mercantile establishments, of which the clerk in one, Clay's Store, was lynched in 1882 by freighters and cowboys after he murdered a customer. The Town's plat was relinquished in 1904.

Rock Creek is noted as being the location of one of the worst disasters in the history of Wyoming. In October 1856, over 200 handcart pioneers perished when caught by an October blizzard. The station was originally constructed in 1860 and destroyed by Indians several times.

Also, it was near Rock Creek, that Indians attacked the Fletcher Family, killing the mother, wounding the father and son and abducting the two daughters, Mary, 17, and Lizzie, 2. Mary was rescued by trappers several days later, but nothing was heard of Lizzie until 30 years later, when in Casper it was noticed that an Indian woman was really white. She spoke no English and refused reunion with her sister and instead, lived out her life on the Wind River Reservation.