Halfway House

Halfway House. (Crow Creek Road). , The Crow Creek Road was the link between the Mormon settlements of Bear Lake and Star Valley for 50 years. The 100-mile round trip between Afton, WY and the railhead at Montpelier ID would take a team of horses from 3 to 7 days depending on the conditions along the way. Road Ranches were set up to help provide for the needs of the freighters and their draft animals no matter what the weather. Nield Ranch to the north, Camp Giveout and Henggi’s Dairy to the south, Halfway House in the middle became the biggest and best of all the stations along Crow Creek Road. , In 1912 Benoni (Noen) and Mary (Maime) Wilkes homesteaded 322 acres where cabins had been built by Hale-Tolman with the mail contract, (held by) Mr and Mrs Tom Ritson, and Charles and Orson Anderson and their wives. Here, Noen Wilkes built Halfway House and a large barn that could house 32 teams and their drivers. This was a haven for freighters, the mail wagon between Afton and Montpelier, and the daily stage coach where travelers could stop for dinner and a change of horses. Maime telephoned Afton daily to find how many guests were on their way so she could provide a family style meal on her wood-burning range. The bunkhouse had a cook stove for those who wished to cook their own meals. A stop at Halfway was a social event that provided a welcome relief from the hard work of a freighters life. Life at the Halfway House for the Wilkes family ended in 1925 when the state highway (convict road) pulled the traffic over Salt Creek Pass further east.