Russell’s Innovation
The organization he perfected surpassed anything of the kind ever known, even that of Genghis Khan, for efficiency, speed, and regularity. These things stand out all the more clearly when it is…
Slade and Gilman Ranch
What is certain is that the division superintendent for the Pony Express who stopped to enlist the Gilman brothers in the crosscountry mail relay was a name that Mark Twain knew well. In…
Gilman Ranch
The Gilman brothers had left the family homestead in Bartlett, New Hampshire, in 1854 and drifted west, stopping first in Iowa and then moving on to Nebraska. In the early summer of…
Pony Route in the East Bay
Steamers usually took the mail back and forth; a Pony rider would board the ship, enjoy the ride, then gallop off to deliver the letters. Deliveries went as far as Oakland, on…
Sod House
Mud Springs was the next home station on the line-a small house made of sod bricks with a wooden roof; the rider could sleep in a lean-to on the side, provided there…
Development of the Trail by 1860
By the winter of 1856-57, when Little and Hanks were again briefly carrying the mail in the interval between the abrogation of the McGraw contract and the signing of the…
Relay Stations and Home Stations
*Stations on the Pony Express route were usually nine to fifteen miles apart and were of two kinds. Relay stations were small affairs which housed only a station keeper and…
Mile 284: Lone Tree Station
“In time or course climbed slightly to a flat upland covered with grain. This was evidently Nine Mile Ridge, where in staging days stood Lone Tree Station. The solitary tree…
Mile 228: Kiowa Station
“Near Kiowa Station the nature of the terrain changed. The hitherto smooth slopes broke into rain-gutted saddles and deep-washed gullies. The wagons had steered a dizzy course like a line…
Mile 1165: Ham’s Fork Pony Express Station
Granger Stage Station State Historic Site/Ham’s Fork Pony Express Station Locale (Granger, Wyo.) was an original stagecoach station built by the Ben Holladay Stage Company in 1862. It later was…
Mile 937: Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek
Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek was a Pony Express and stagecoach stop. This is also where the Martin handcart company, struggling west through early blizzards, first met rescue wagons from Salt Lake City.
Mile 930: Red Buttes Station
Located 10 miles from North Platte Station and 12 miles from Willow Springs Station about 200 feet southwest of the Red Buttes Oregon Trail Marker and south of the old…
Mile 930: Red Buttes Station
Red Buttes Crossing/Bessemer Bend (south of Casper) is one of the places where travelers forded the North Platte River— then 300 yards wide—for the last time and started the push…
mIle 917: Fort Casper
Site of Fort Caspar/Platte Bridge Station, Fort Caspar Museum, 1847 Mormon Ferry, and Guinard Bridge. Fort Casper was a focus of 19th century emigration, commercial, and military activity. In 1847, Brigham…
Mile 1464: Black Rock Station
[Not: The site is between Mile 1463 and 1464] "Also known as Butte, or Desert Station, it was named for the black basalt outcropping just to the north of the…