The original Ford Stage Stop cache, GC21V4K, was placed 12/7/09 and ran quite successfully until being archived on 5/14/16. During that time there were 92 logged visits with Elkjim getting the FTF the day after it opened followed closely by Bubblegummers.
I have no idea why it was called the Ford Stage Stop and have no historical notes to tell. Perhaps I should have made some up like, this was where Henry Ford rode the stage to while he was dreaming up the Model T or where President Ford tripped while getting out of the stage while on his trip around America. Perhaps you could give me some ideas.
Shortly after I posted this cache I received a wonderful update from Kestrel Ridge. Here's a little more of the story of the area. Back in the very early days, now some 100 years ago, highway 20 was a wagon road between Bend and Burns, for stage and freight wagons. Ford Road was the only road passable over the Horse Ridge area, and started at the intersection of Gosney and Arnold Mkt Roads, continuing SE to Stookey Flat and then around the south side of Horse Ridge, defined by Golden Basin, to become County Road 2015 and then to join County Road 2017 that followed the drainage uphill south to what is now Pine Mtn. Observatory. Ford Rd likely split to the north at the 2017 junction and wandered east to Burns along much of the existing right of way. Eventually, travel shifted away from the dirt/lava bedrock of Ford Rd and up to what then became old highway 20 at the Horse Ridge summit area, where you can still see remnants of that old road today. When road building equipment matured to the point of making the big cut down the northwest face of Horse Ridge, old Hwy 20 was abandoned for the new and dramatic road cut we drive today, descending Horse Ridge to south of the Badlands and Bend beyond.