From the 1840s to the 1860s, emigrants’ journals and diaries repeatedly place Rawhide Creek within the routine and hardship of overland travel, where people nooned, camped, crossed the stream, and sometimes buried loved ones. Death and disease were common on the emigrant trails, where an estimated average of ten graves lay along every mile, caused by unclean water, poor food preparation, chilly night watches, sleeping on cold or wet ground, months of exhausting toil, and diseases including measles, whooping cough, fever, cholera, and dysentery. In September 1862, Ezra Francis Martin recorded the deaths of his wife Sophia and his young daughter Esther Jane; after the wagon train reached Rawhide Creek, the wagon master allowed time for Sophia to be buried, and before camp was broken the next morning, two other children were also buried along the stream bank. For emigrants on the trail, there were no markets, no doctors, no laws, and no second chances, and until they reached journey’s end, they were on their own. Journal entries from 1847 by Heber C. Kimball, William Clayton, and Thomas Bullock also place travelers at Rawhide Creek, recording encampment there and Bullock’s severe illness with ague and fever during the journey.