Rattlesnake Station

The station opened in August 1864 on Ben Holladay's Overland Stage Line between Salt Lake City and Walla Walla, and not everyone liked it; one traveler wrote that he had renamed it Bedbug Station. A post office called The Mountain Home was set up here in 1876, two years before the sign's date for the name. When the railroad came through the valley in 1883, the postmaster, Jule Hager, decided the mail should meet the trains, packed the post office into a soapbox without asking anyone's leave, and carried it and the name down the hill.

What the plaque says

Rattlesnake Station At the junction of the Rocky Bar road with the Oregon Trail, this was a major stage line stop for 20 years. Stage service commenced in 1864, and a road to the Rocky Bar mines was opened 2 months later. In 1878 the station owners thought it would sound a lot better to call their place Mountain Home instead of Rattlesnake. Then the Union Pacific--built out in the valley in 1883--replaced the freight wagons and stage lines that came through here. So Mountain Home was moved on down Rattlesnake Creek to its present location on the railroad. 195 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bruneau Dunes State Park — 17 mi
  Sand dunes that stay where they are, in a bend the Snake River abandoned, under dark skies an hour from Boise.

More markers nearby

• Toll Gate — 8.2 mi
• Bannock War — 16 mi
• Castle Rock — 20 mi
• Goodale's Cutoff — 20 mi