Captain Thunderbolt, an Australian bushranger, waited at this location to ambush the mail stage coach. They were spotted by NSW Government troopers on 23 October 1863. In the ensuing gunfight, Thunderbolt (Ward) was shot in the back of the left knee.

Thunderbolt was an excellent horseman and roamed in the Northern Tablelands area and had the longest period of a bushranger to resist capture by the police of all Australian bushrangers.

Over the following six-and-a-half years, Thunderbolt robbed mailmen, travellers, inns, stores and stations across much of northern New South Wales - from Newcastle north to Queensland and from Tamworth nearly as far west as Bourke. He was accompanied by three other men. On 25 May 1870, after robbing travellers near the Big Rock, Ward was shot and killed by Constable Alexander Binney Walker at Kentucky Creek near Uralla.