 A six-foot-high, two-and-one-half-foot-thick rock wall was built to enclose both the log houses and an open commons area.On November 23, 1862, in the foothills just outside Providence, a two-hour skirmish was fought by 60 soldiers under the command of Major Edward McGarry of the U.S. Second Cavalry against 30 or 40 Shoshonis under Chief Bear Hunter.The objective was to recover livestock and a ten-year-old white boy taken during the massacre of a wagon train on the Oregon Trail in August 1860.