Rock Creek Station and Stricker Homesite

Rock Creek Store, Dry Cellar, Wet Cellar, Stage Station Site, China House Site, Stricker House, Summer House, Pioneer Cemetery

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Willow-lined Rock Creek has formed a welcome refuge for Native Americans, explorers, and pioneers traveling through south central Idaho for centuries. Because it is located in a high desert area where average yearly rainfall is less than 10 inches, the availability of water and plant life was a natural draw to voyagers and those in search of a permanent settlement.

Beginning around 1810, explorers and mountain men followed Indian trails as they trapped in all the drainages of the Snake River in the area, including Rock Creek. By 1840, dwindling beaver populations forced fur traders to a new occupation--guiding emigrants through the area.

In the 1840s, a rush of settlers followed the Oregon Trail to the Oregon country. Rock Creek was a popular camping spot along the Trail from the outset, and wagon ruts can still be seen at the site.

When gold miners who rushed to southern Idaho in the early 1860s needed delivery of freight and mail, Rock Creek became a stop on what became the Kelton Wagon Road.

In 1864, Ben Holladay was awarded a contract to deliver mail from Salt Lake City to Walla Walla, Washington. When his agents built lava - Creek. It became a "home station," where stage drivers and attendants lived while they were off duty and where passengers could buy a meal or a night's lodging.

The original station consisted of a lava-rock building that served as a hotel and barn. In 1865 a store was built at the site. A small community grew up around the business, which also became a social center.

Railroad construction boosted the prosperity of Rock Creek for a period of time when the transcontinental railroad provided a faster and less expensive means of bringing freight and mail into Utah. Those goods were then transported to their destinations in Idaho along the Kelton Wagon Road from the nearest railroad stop , at Kelton, Utah. In 1884 the Oregon Short Line Railroad was constructed on the north side of the Snake River -- across the river from Rock Creek -- and ultimately contributed to a decline in the community's importance.

While the Rock Creek Station was near a railroad, the great crack in the earth that formed the Snake River Canyon isolated the settlement and its use as a stage stop dwindled. The many large ranches that were developed in the area depended on the store, however, and the cattle industry helped to expand the community.

The 1880 census reported that 44 people lived in the Rock Creek Valley. The 1900 census listed 146 people living at Rock Creek.

Rock Creek store, date unknown. ISHS 904.

James Bascom and John Corder built the store at Rock Creek in 1865, a year after the area had been designated a "home station" on the new Overland Stage Line route. The store was also the first trading post between Boise and Fort Hall, and a stopping point on the Oregon Trail and the Kelton Wagon Road.

In 1871 a post office was established in the store, and it also served as a polling place during elections.

In the fall of 1876, two German emmigrants, Herman Stricker and John Botzet, bought the store and contents, a stable and contents, and a dwelling house for approximately $5,300. Stricker became the Rock Creek postmaster in 1877 and served in that position for the next 22 years.

An addition on the north end of the building housed a saloon and card room for use by settlers, cowboys, and travelers. The store was closed in 1897 and later served several times as a home for families.

The small log store building remains intact at the west end of the site. Its sod roof was replaced with shingles after a wet winter in 1879-80 and is now covered by a preservation roof constructed in 1985.

Dry Cellar

Located north of the Rock Creek Store, the cellar was used for storage of food and supplies, as a jail, and reportedly for protection from Indians. A semi-subterranean structure, it was created by utilizing a natural depression in the basalt and enlarging it by removing additional rock. Poles and a dirt roof were added to complete the structure. It is entered through a door on the south side of the structure.

Wet Cellar

Also located north of the Rock Creek Store, the cellar was used to store saloon supplies. It too is a semi-subterranean structure created by utilizing the natural depression in the basalt, enlarged by removing additional rock. Poles and a dirt roof were added to complete the structure. It is entered through a door on the south side.

Stage Station Site

Built by Ben Holladay to accommodate 40 horses and overnight stops by stage passengers and to serve meals on his Overland Stage Line route, the foundation of the building is still visible east of the dry and wet cellars.

China House Site

A gathering place for Chinese attracted to the area by mining, this small building was located east of the Rock Creek Store and may have been used as an opium parlor or a store that sold Chinese merchandise. Beyond mining, Chinese settlers tended gardens and sold vegetables at the site. Eventually, open hostility from other residents and restrictive emmigration laws, such as the Exclusion Act of 1882, forced the Chinese to leave the area.

Positioning of China House on the site is identified by lava-rock markers outlining the approximate location of its foundation.

Recent archaeological investigations by ISHS archaeologists at the China House have identified possible structural remains and Chinese domestic refuse (rice bowl fragments, a celadon teacup sherd, soy sauce and/or ginger jar fragments). Future excavations are planned to help augment the historical record by attempting to determine the full extent and intensity of the Chinese presence at Stricker Ranch during the late nineteenth century.

Stricker House

Herman Stricker home, Rock Creek, 1901. ISHS 80-13.1

Herman Stricker, who moved to Rock Creek in 1876, filed for and was granted a water claim for 300 inches of Rock Creek water. He completed a ditch for irrigation and mining in 1884 and appropriated an additional 200 inches of Rock Creek water at that time. Stricker homesteaded additional land until his family holdings totaled 960 acres.

An original six-room log cabin constructed by Stricker near the store burned down in March of 1900. Later that year, the Stricker family built a new home, which exists today on the southeast corner of the Rock Creek site.

The house was constructed with walls of hand-hewn lumber hauled from Albion. In 1916 the original 11-room structure was expanded with an extension on the formal dining room, present kitchen, bath, service entrance, sun porch, and storage area.

The upper floor of the house served as a hotel for travelers, cowboys, and engineers and surveyors during construction of Milner Dam and the Twin Falls Canal.

Summer House

Located south of the Stricker Ranch House, this building served as the kitchen during 1916 construction on the original home and was used during hot weather to help keep the house cool.

Pioneer Cemetery

Located on a five-acre piece of private land west of the Rock Creek site for which the Society has responsibility, the cemetery contains graves dating from 1874 to 1897. Fencing and markers were added to the location in 1990 and 1991, but livestock grazing in the field around the cemetery have continually damaged the protective fencing and threatened preservation of the remaining grave markers.