Toll Gate

The toll here was $1.50 for a two-horse wagon or buggy, one way. Newberg's company sold out in 1868, and in March 1870 James A. Porter bought out a partner's share for $4,000 and soon owned the whole road. He kept improving it and his station, ran a dairy that made butter on water power, and pushed a branch down Rattlesnake Creek to meet the Overland Road at Rattlesnake Station; when a stage line to Rocky Bar started that year, Porter's became its halfway stop. A stretch of the old toll road west of here can still be driven.

What the plaque says

Toll Gate An 1868 toll road to Rocky Bar provided better access to early gold mines 40 miles north of here. Julius Newberg's South Boise wagon road had reached Rocky Bar in 1864, but a route through this canyon was needed to avoid steep Syrup Creek grades on Goodale's Cutoff 8 miles northwest of here. Tolls were collected here for 20 years to maintain it, and James A. Porter's splendid hotel and dairy attracted travellers for many miles. 197 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 — 25 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

• Rattlesnake Station — 8.2 mi
• Castle Rock — 14 mi
• Goodale's Cutoff — 14 mi
• Gold Mines — 16 mi