In 1849 Joseph Rogidoux III of St. Joseph, Missouri, licensed in the Indian trade, moved his outfit from the vicinity of Fort Laramie to this strategic pass over Scotts Bluff, where there was ample wood and water. Emigrant diaries and artifacts confirm that the new post stood about 300 yards north-northeast of here at the junction of a large spring-fed ravine flowing north and a smaller drainage descending eastward from the crest of the pass. Capt. John Stansbury’s 1850 journal noted Scotts Bluff, a small rivulet, a row of old deserted houses, and a spring at the foot of the Sandstone Bluffs where the emigrant road crossed the ridge. The Oregon-California Trail ruts approaching from the east are still clearly visible as they climb toward the head of the ravine, though erosion has erased evidence of the actual crossing. In 1850 James Bennett described Robidoux’s place as a row of rudely constructed huts of cedar logs and mud that served as a trading post or store, blacksmith shop, and dwellings, usually surrounded by Indian families of the Robidoux clan, especially Joseph Robidoux IV and Antoine Robidoux. The family had intended to trade with Indians for buffalo robes, but the rush of covered-wagon emigrants bound for the California goldfields quickly transformed their business. They adapted by doing extensive business with emigrants, especially blacksmith work, and by selling staples and whiskey, while also acquiring abandoned wagons, gear, and supplies left by overloaded travelers. Later in 1850 the family abandoned this post and built another about one mile to the southeast in what is now called Carter Canyon, a site rarely visited by emigrants and probably soon abandoned. Father Pierre Jean DeSmet visited the Carter Canyon site in the autumn of 1851 after the great gathering of Indian tribes at Horse Creek during negotiations for the first Fort Laramie peace treaty. During the early 1851 emigration season the pass post reopened to trade with emigrants, but later that season the Robidoux family left the pass for good and established posts on the trail both east and west of Scotts Bluff, one near present Melbeta and the other near present Lyman, Nebraska.