Around 1917, the last stagecoach on the Black Canyon route made its final run. Motor vehicles were taking over, and a scrappy 19-year-old entrepreneur named Ben Warner decided that a dusty desert highway was exactly the right place to build something.

He started with a canvas-covered store — hauling gasoline in five-gallon cans, drawing water from a hand-dug well, and stocking supplies for miners making the long trip down from the gold camps. As business grew, he built a proper general store and hotel from adobe blocks, completing the complex in 1924. That building still stands today.

In those early years, the drive between Prescott and Phoenix was a genuine ordeal — flat tires, steaming radiators, and unpaved roads thick with caliche dust. Ben Warner became the unofficial checkpoint on one of Arizona’s toughest routes. He was the area postmaster. He held Yavapai County Telephone Number 93 — the only phone for miles in any direction. And if the copper still reportedly found in his attic is any indication, he may have also offered a few off-menu provisions during Prohibition.

Rock Springs was so central to the region that the surrounding area took its name. For decades, if you were anywhere in that stretch of Black Canyon, you were “at Rock Springs.”