After the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, new stage and freight routes connected southwestern Idaho with newly established railheads. Kelton, Utah, soon became the main shipping point for Boise when John Hailey established a stage line between the two places along a route that freighters had opened from Salt Lake City to Boise in 1866 and that largely followed the Oregon Trail in southern Idaho. Hailey maintained nineteen stage stations on the 232-mile route and operated on a 42-hour schedule. Many freighters soon followed, and the route carried heavy traffic until the Oregon Short Line railway was completed across southern Idaho in 1884. Increased use of the route created a need for better roads and grades for heavy freight wagons and stagecoaches. The Kelton ramp, one-half mile west of here, is an excellent example of nineteenth-century road construction, with its stacked rock road base showing the ingenuity and hard work of early road builders. Before this road, wagons used steep natural breaks in the cliff to reach the Boise River, and one on the rim 300 yards east of here was the first point to get water.