Visit McAuley's Road & Big Hills Historic Markers, Montpelier, Idaho

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McAuley's Road: Coming west with Ezra Meeker in 1852, Thomas McAuley decided to build a road to let emigrants bypass Big Hill. Worst of all Oregon Trail descents, Big Hill needed replacement. Eliza McAuley reported that her brother Tom "fished awhile, then took a ramble... and discovered a pass by which the mountain can be avoided by doing a little road building." With an emigrant crew, he opened a wagon toll road that followed current Highway 30. After 1852, no one maintained the new route and it fell into disuse. Big Hill: On their way west to Oregon and California, emigrant wagons often crossed high ridges in order to avoid gullies and canyons. When he came here in 1843, Theodore Talbot noted that he "had to cross a very high hill, which is said to be the greatest impediment on the whole route from the United States (over 200 miles east of here) to Fort Hall (over 120 miles farther west). The ascent is very long and tedious, but the descent is still more abrupt and difficult." Many wagons had to be let down by ropes tied to trees that disappeared long ago. Markers are on U.S. 30 at milepost 441.7 near Hunters Lane, on the right when traveling west.

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