Massacre Rocks State Park
Subnational Park · American Falls, Idaho
Nine hundred and ninety acres on the Snake River about ten miles south-west of American Falls, where the Oregon Trail squeezed through a gap in the lava the emigrants called the Gate of Death. The name is a nineteenth-century one and the park no longer stands behind it: settler diaries record a clash on 9 and 10 August 1862 in which at least eight settlers from four wagon trains and at least twenty Shoshone were killed, and the fighting happened east of Devil's Gate rather than at these rocks. Modern histories treat the name as a misnomer. What is unambiguously here is Register Rock, where emigrants carved their names, and a stretch of river the trail followed.
3592 Park Lane, American Falls, Idaho, 83211, United States
Open year round for day use with an Idaho state park vehicle entry fee; the state annual passport is accepted. ⚠ THE VISITOR CENTRE KEEPS SEASONAL HOURS and is reduced or closed outside the main season - check before travelling, because without the interpretation the site is sage, lava and a river. Camping is reserved through the Idaho state park reservation service and, unusually for this folder, IS USUALLY AVAILABLE even in summer. ⚠ REGISTER ROCK IS A SEPARATE PARCEL a few miles west within the park, with its own car park - it is included in the entry fee and most day visitors miss it. There is essentially no shade anywhere in the park.
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