Million Dollar Mile pt 3

According to the legend, in a fit of rage, Coyote flung Rabbit from the top of Steamboat Rock, where he landed and stuck in the side of the coulee wall below Salishan Mesa. Rabbit was then changed to stone and became Rabbit Rock. One of the earliest postcards from the 1930s identifies the rock basalt column as Rabbit Ears Rock, and at one time the ears stuck further out the top than they do today, giving the rock an even more rabbit like appearance. At one time the Old Speedball Highway ran under the rock and people would take shots at the rabbit from down below. Some people say this is why the rabbit's ears are so short, others say it was because of the blasting during the construction of the Million Dollar Mile. Rabbit Rock is still there, looking North to Steamboat Rock. At the bottom of the north end of the Million Dollar Mile is Payne Gulch, where old Len Dillman lived in his golden years until dying suddenly in a wreck. Word is his old, dilapidated Model T truck went off the road and hit a big boulder, flying all to pieces and killing the Optimistic Bachelor, as he was known. A slice of the old road on which he was traveling can still be seen running from Banks Lake to Larsen Falls.

John M. Kemble, Them Dam Writers online 2020