In fact, we found it difficult to find two tales that even named the same holdup men. If you read fifty different accounts, from fifty different sources, you will discover fifty entirely differing stories of what occurred. Researching the holdup, and the aftermath, is like trying to ascertain how big a fisherman’s catch was when no one else was around to witness it. Our journey into the annals of Rochford took a dramatic turn on November 22nd of 1878, when we stumbled into one of the most notorious events of Black Hills history, being the holdup of the Canyon Springs Stagecoach, a possible link to Rochford, and some incredibly large lost gold bars. Just like riding a Roxor through the thousands of miles of trails here in the Black Hills though, you never know quite where you are going to end up when you start looking beneath the rocks of history. We were planning on writing a blog about how Rochford had been founded in May of 1878, and how, among other things, according to the Daily Press and Dakotaian of November of 1878, “the people of Rochford, Black Hills, being uncertain as to whether they belonged to Lawrence or Pennington County, made themselves safe by voting for the candidate for each county.” We were excited to return to the area and take a Roxor on some of the trails, but we simply could not bring ourselves to do it without doing some research on the history of the area first. It was a most happy accident that we ended up in the tiny unincorporated mining town of Rochford, and we found more trail heads on the road between Rochford and Highway 385 than we could count. On our freestyle return the other day from Custer Peak, we allowed ourselves to get lost on the trails by putting away our map and turning off our GPS from Mad Peak Lodging and Roxor Rental, and just let the Roxor find a way through the maze of trails to the South.
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