For centuries, a limestone outcrop at this crossroads served as an important landmark and meeting area. The Shoshone tribe, from whom Sacagawea had been kidnapped as a child, came here every summer. By August 5, 1805, members of the Corps of Discovery had been watching for the rock for days and were growing desperate because they needed to find it in order to meet the Shoshone and obtain horses, the only way they could cross the Rockies before winter. A few days later, they did meet the Shoshone, whose chief was Sacagawea's brother. By 1856, one of the ancient trails here had become the primary travel route used by the region's first ranchers for cattle drives. After gold was discovered in the early 1860s, freight wagons used the Montana-Utah Road to bring supplies to prospectors and settlers. In 1863, the present-day Beaver Gateway Ranch became the site of the Point of Rocks Stage Station, with a hotel, saloon, and post office that operated until 1885. Roads to the Big Hole Valley and to Helena also converged here, and although railroads built in the early 1880s made the stage route obsolete, for at least 22 years nearly everyone traveling to or from Helena, Virginia City, or Bannack passed through this place.