This framed photo hangs in The Rock Creek Trading Post in Rock Creek. Left to right: June Carter, Joe Carlton, unknown, Johnny Cash.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Silas Dunham
December 05, 2023 - 6:00 AM
The little town of Rock Creek in the Boundary region of BC has a special claim to fame immortalized in a photograph.
Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter stopped at the little town in the mid-1980s.
The photo is hanging in The Rock Creek Trading Post, a coffee shop at the junction of Highway 3 and Highway 33.
“This used to be a rock shop owned by a guy named Joe Carlton,” Trading Post owner Scott Petrie said. “It was a long time ago. I think Johnny Cash came through in ’85 or ’86. The photo was taken in the parking lot with Joe and the girl who worked with him. June Carter was there too."
Petrie said the framed photo is a popular topic of conversation for travellers stopping by for coffee. He admitted he isn’t sure about all the details behind the photo, but he’s heard a lot stories about it over the years.
“Everyone who comes in stops to look at it. I’ve had a few people say (Cash) stopped here to look at the ocean stones and the laughing rock on his way to Calgary,” Petrie said.
Ocean wave agates are gemstones that were extracted from a small quarry in Rock Creek in the early 1980s. Petrie said what’s known as the Laughing Rock is a rock in his parking lot that used to look like a laughing face but it has worn down over time and no longer looks like a face.
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It isn’t clear who snapped the locally famous photo that features Johnny Cash, June Carter, Joe Carlton — the owner of Captain Joe’s Rock Shop — and a woman who worked at the shop at the time.
One thing that is clear, the photo is a special piece of Rock Creek history and an ongoing conversation piece.
If you know more of the history behind the photo of Johnny Cash and June Carter, please send an email to sainslie@infonews.ca.
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