In 1873 or early 1874, Freeman S. Raymond, an original forty-niner, bought or built a stagecoach station here, at the junction of the Walker Pass road (the route of modern California 178) and the road to Los Angeles (now replaced by California State Route 14). Both roads carried traffic to and from the mines then in the area. The Walker Pass road led to the Kern River mines, while the Los Angeles road continued further north and east to the mines at Cerro Gordo, the Panamints, and later Darwin and Bodie, California.