Granite Creek Station: Site of Massacre and Memory

Summary

Granite Creek Station was one of several significant stopping places for emigrants, travelers, saddle trains, and stagecoaches passing through the Black Rock Desert region of Northern Nevada on their way to California in the mid-19th century. The site functioned as a campsite, trading post, ranch, stagecoach station, and military camp. As a site along the emigrant trail, it was the locus of extraordinary pain and suffering by travellers, described in their own words through diaries and letters. The site was also the location of several episodes of violence, including one described as "The Butchery at Granite Creek Station," between local Paiutes and western settlers. This paper will present the results of excavations of this site and will explicitly examine the role of the site as a place of hardship and conflict.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage