Emigrant traffic through City of Rocks declined after 1852 and nearly ended after the Transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad was completed, but the area remained an important transportation center as a relay point and rest stop on mail and stage routes linking the railhead at Kelton, Utah, with the boom-mining communities of the Boise Basin. Beginning in September 1850, George Chorpenning and Absolom Woodward's government-sponsored mail wagons ran from Fort Bridger to Sacramento by way of the Salt Lake Alternate and Granite Pass. The route was abandoned in September 1853 because of harsh winters and difficulty with Indians, then resumed briefly in 1858 when the Mormon War disrupted the San Bernardino route. From July to December 1858, Concord coaches of four-horse mud wagons passed through once a week. The City of Rocks Home Station stood at the head of Emigrant Canyon beside the same spring that had led pioneers to camp there, and Chorpenning and Woodward may have built it as early as 1858 when they stocked their route with stations every 20 miles. Beginning in 1860, a local version of the Pony Express also ran through City of Rocks on a route from Boise to Brigham City, Utah, by way of Rock Creek, Goose Creek, the City of Rocks stage station, Raft River Headquarters, and Kelton Pass. Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company coaches reached the region by way of the Salt Lake Alternate, then turned north rather than west and continued over Lyman Pass to Rock Creek along the Snake River, a 240 mile trip that stage driver C. S. Walgamott reported took about 40 hours. By the 1870s, Wm. Trotter and his wife served five meals a day at the station, whose log buildings had low ceilings, a barroom 30 by 14 feet with a large fireplace, and clean, comfortable beds prepared for snow-bound passengers. The Kelton to Boise Stage Route was abandoned by 1883, when the Oregon Short Line Railroad reached the Snake River corridor north of City of Rocks.