FAIRBURY, Neb. (KOLN) – Rock Creek Station State Historical Park preserves three significant chapters of westward expansion history at a single location south of Fairbury.
The site marks a major crossing point on the Oregon-California Trail, a Pony Express station and the location of a shootout that made Wild Bill Hickok a famous gunfighter.
“We have the Oregon-California Trail that came through here,” Superintendent Gregg Galbraith said. “And we have predominant ruts in the hillside there where you can see where they came through.”
The Pony Express operated at the station from April 1860 to November 1861. The site also marks where Wild Bill Hickok shot David McCanles.
When pioneers crossed the Missouri River at St. Joseph, Missouri, Rock Creek represented the next major water obstacle.
“This was kind of the next track where they had to cross a major creek, Rock Creek,” Galbraith said. “David McCanles, when he established here, he built a toll bridge. And so it made it so much easier for people to cross the creek and venture on out west.”
The park features replica buildings constructed in 1980 based on historical photographs and family drawings. The structures include a barn with a blacksmith shop, a bunkhouse and the cabin where the Hickok-McCanles shootout occurred.
“We’ve got pictures of some of the McCanles family when they were here, and pictures of how the buildings were, the barns,” Galbraith said. “And so they’re pretty close to exactly where those original structures were.”