Quick Facts – Pony Express Ride

A collection of historical tidbits about the Pony Express taken mostly from books, except as otherwise noted. This slider cycles through all of the Quick Facts in random order. I will be adding to these as I read through more sources. You can pause a slide by hovering your mouse over the Fact. To find Quick Facts on a particular topic, click on the appropriate tag in the sidebar. All Facts connected with places on the trail also appear under the appropriate state in the Route Reports section.

Mile 437: Cottonwood Station
“Eighty miles west of Fort Kearney the emigrants found a spring surrounded by cottonwoods. Near it the ravines were filled with scrub cedar. It was always a favorite camp and later became an important stage stop with the unimaginative name Cottonwood Spring. The cedar wood was freighted by ox train for a hundred miles in each direction to supply the stations, and the cottonwood logs were cut and hauled for building purposes. When the Indians became troublesome Fort McPherson was established close by; and we saw its flag, high and tiny but unmistakable, long before we arrived in sight of the buildings. The stage station disappeared long ago, but the fort remains, surrounded by the beautifully kept grounds of a national cemetery.”

[N.B. The Fort McPherson marker is just before Mile 435 on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route.]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 100-102

Mile 841-878: La Bonte to Box Elder Station
“[We] headed for the succession of creeks which the pioneers had crossed in the next three days’ journey.

The first was Wagonhound [near Mile 844]. Few knew the name, but none ever forgot the creek, and it could always be identified by description, for it was red. The soil and the rock were almost audibly red, from the burnt hue of Mexican pottery to the clear vivd tone of a madrone trunk. . . . One woman was impressed by the lurid color and the general look of drastic upheaval that she painfully crawled to the top of one of the ‘mountains of red stone’ and inscribed upon it, ‘Remember me in mercy O Lord.’ . . .

A stream just beyond Grindstone Butte, modernly called Bed Tick Creek, was apparently nameless to the emigrants; but it furnished water and a little much-needed grass. Next came La Prelle, the first large stream after Le Bonte Creek, boasting a natural bridge of rock.

After La Prelle came Little and then Big Box Elder. . . .

Through all the years it was a great moment for the throngs of emigrants as they struggled over the last elevation [near Box Elder Creek]. Behind them, low ridge after low ridge, in serried order, marched the Black Hills. Ahead, the Platte twisted through the lowland, gleaming silvery on the curves: a strange river, blurred gray and untrustworthy . . .”

[N.B. There were Pony Express stations at La Prelle and Box Elder. Both sites, however, are off the Pony Express Bikepacking route]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 185-191

Mile 1078: Pacific Springs Station
“All the time that my brain was wandering in this pleasant fog of confused ideas, my feet were carrying me out of the troubled times of ’49 and into the comparative luxury of the sixties (for the log houses, toward which my gregarious husband started some time ago, date from the original staging days, when they constituted the important Pony Express and stage station called Pacific Spring). There are four buildings—two on each side of the old road—widely spaced so that they form the four corners of a rough rectangle. The house faces the old store and bar. The blacksmith shop stares across at the stables. It is now the John Hays horse ranch, and the buildings are in everyday use.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 236

Mile 753: Fort Laramie Ferry
“Robert Campbell [who built the original fort that became Fort Laramie] had cannily built his picketed stockade in the angle of the two rivers [Laramie and North Platte], so that all who approached from the east must either ford the Laramie or ferry the North Platte. Both projects provided plenty of exercise and some risk. Thos companies who had attained the west bank of the Missouri River at Independence, St. Joseph, Nebraska City, or nearby ferries, and who consequently traveled south of the Platte must now ford the Laramie. And the Laramie was deep, swift-flowing, and ice-cold. Those who ferried the Missouri at Kanesville or Council Bluffs, and remained north of the Platte were now faced with the thankless job of ferrying to the south side only to cross back again just west of the Black Hills, where the river swung too far south for their purpose, and the road left it definitely and forever. The did so up to and including the year 1849. . . .

There was no necessity, as it later proved, for any man to risk (and sometimes lose) his life in ferrying the Platte at Fort Laramie: there was an easy route on the north side. The officers [at Fort Laramie] were suspected of giving out misleading information to induce the emigrants to cross—at first, on account of the profit they could make from selling supplies at exhorbitant prices, and later because they ran a government ferry at five dollars per wagon and had unlimited opportunity to line their pockets.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 161

Dogtown and Dobytown
“Beginning in 1858 there were two famous—or infamous—appendages of Fort Kearny, primitive communities which supplied vital needs for civilians and soldiers alike. Eight miles to the east, just off the reservation line, was Valley City, or Dogtown. Just beyond the western line, two miles away and therefore a much bigger and livelier place, was Kearney City, or Dobytown. . . .

Monthly mail between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah, began in the summer of 1850. In 1858 mail service went on a weekly basis, and with this began the systematic transportation of passengers, first by mail wagon, later by the famous Concord coaches. To facilitate this service, the company built stage stations at intervals of town or twelve miles. This was the actual beginning of Valley City and Kearney City. The former was related to a ‘swing station’ where horses were changed; the latter evolved from a ‘home station’ where drivers were changed and meals offered the passengers. . . .

The Pony Express of 1860-1861, operated by Russell, Majors & Waddell, of freighting fame, shared most of its stations with the Holladay company along the main Platte; accordingly, there were Pony Express stations at Valley City and in the Fort Kearny vicinity. Contrary to widespread impression, the Pony Express riders did not gallop up to Moses Sydenham’s sod [sutler] post near the Fort Kearny parade ground; they kept right on going to the log station west of the fort, and mail by stage or Pony Express was carried back to the fort from there.”

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 216-217

Lower and Upper California Crossings
“Between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie there were only two divergences that are noteworthy; both pertain to the late period of the trail. Until 1859 all travel on the south bank of the Platte crossed the south fork of the river west of its junction with the north fork. The trail then moved northwest up the ‘peninsula’ between the south and north forks of the river and through Ash Hollow before reaching the valley of the North Platte. It then continued up the south bank to Fort Laramie. The discovery of gold in Colorado let to the Pike’s Peak trail southwestward up the South Platte and another connecting trail northward to the North Platte via Courthouse Rock, for which Julesburg, Colorado, became the new junction point.”

[N.B. The first crossing became known as the Lower California Crossing, and the later crossing near Julesburg was the North California Crossing. The Pony Express used the North California Crossing. Julesburg was the most problematic station at the opening of the Pony Express.]

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 6

Mile 1235-1311: Henefer to Mountain Dell station
“Beyond [Henefer Creek’s] headwaters, the great wagons rolled and thundered through Pratt’s Pass on the summit of a low divide.Down another steep hill the wagons pitched while all hands and the cook held back on ropes and on the wheels; along the bed of the tiny streamlet, crossing and crisscrossing it for two or three miles down to East Canyon with its steep watercourse known variously as Canyon, east canyon, or kenyon Creek. Here they really learned the meaning of ‘trouble.’

Small shallow East Canyon Creek had to be forded ten or more times; the trail was crooked beyond reason and think with amputated willow stubs, testimony to the herculean task accomplished by the Reed-Donner party in forcing a passage through mountains at this point in 1846. The Mormons, traveling in their footsteps a year later, accomplished the thirty-five mile trek from Weber River to Salt Lake Valley in three days; but they recorded that it took the Donner party sixteen days of hard labor to win through the valley. For years the cut willow stubs remained, and the animals baptized them with blood from torn hoofs and gashed legs.

From East Canyon the trail led up a ravine worn down by a narrow and precipitous creek full of bottomless mire and huge boulders ‘over which mules and wagon wheels had to be pulled or lifted constantly.’ . . .

When they reached the top of this four-mile climb the wagons were at the highest elevation of the entire journey so far, and about two thousand feet above the point where they had entered East Canyon. Here, on the fir-crowned summit of Big Mountain, the migrating Mormon columns had their first view of the promised land.

A mile and a half down, and down. No animals were left on on the wagons but the faithful wheelers remaining to hold up the tongues. Every available man held back on a rope. By ’49 the timber had been cut for the building of Salt Lake City and the caravans twisted here and there between the jagged stumps down to a small, sheltered hollow known as Mountain Dell. It was a lovely meadow, but miry. The wagons often celebrated their return to the horizontal by stalling in the mud with promptness and precision, and the tired travelers, admitting that they were sunk, gave it up for the day, camped, and fought mosquitoes.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 295-296

Mile 554: Lodgepole Creek Valley
“Here is the valley of Lodgepole Creek through which passed historic trails, telegraph lines, and railroads. The famed Pony Express followed the valley in 1860-61. “Nine Mile” Pony Express station was located just southeast of present Chappell; “Pole Creek No. 2” station was a few miles west of here. Near Sidney, the Pony Express trail turned northwestward, passing Mud Springs station and Courthouse Rock en route to the North Platte River. In 1861 the first transcontinental telegraph line was built through the valley. Stagecoaches of the Central Overland Route soon followed, carrying passengers and mail. Former Pony express stations continued to serve the stage line, providing lodging and provisions for travelers. When the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad reached here in 1867, wagon and stagecoach travel declined. Today modern highways retrace historic trails through the valley. Two miles east is Chappell, at first only a railroad siding. The townsite was surveyed in 1884 and a post office was established two years later. Chappell became the county seat of Deuel County in 1894.”

History Nebraska website

Mile 946: Willow Springs
“In time [the emigrants] passed. out of the poison-spring region, went over a snappy ridge, and came to Willow Springs at a distance of twenty-six miles from the ferry. In years of little travelit was the perfect oasis, pure water in a tiny willow grove surrounded by untainted grass. During heavy migrations the grass soon disappeared, and the cattle of the poor or improvident man went unfed at the end of a grueling day’s work. The water never failed.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 205-206

Mile 1311-1322: Mountain Dell to Journey's End
“[From Little Mountain] Seven miles yet intervened between these recklessly intermingled people and the City of the Great Salt Lake, most of them in narrow, rock-bound brushy Emigration Canyon.

Between Emigrant Canyon and the city the wagons slowly filed past the spot, now called Journey’ End, where Brigham Young spoke the well remembered words, ‘This is the place.’ Just ahead the ‘City of the Saints’ spread before them, three miles in each direction.”

[N.B. This area is now called “This is the Place Heritage Park.”]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 297

Mile 1119: Simpson's Hollow and Simpson's Gulch
“One other landmark caught our attention on the trek toward Green River—the graves in the stretch of river bank where the coulee of Simpson Hollow opens out to the Big Sandy. We were on the bridge over Simpson Hollow when we saw, coming up the gulch, a flock of soft dun sheep that blanketed the rolling banks on either side like a spread cloth of nubbly wool. A herder followed . . .Yes, there were graves there—quite a lot, he told us, getting more and more indistinct as years passed until now he only remembered where to find one or two. As a boy he had considered it almost a trail cemetery.

And how did travelers know that it was ahead? Well, word of tomorrow’s travel and what it would bring seems to have sifted throughout the whole line of wagons, probably from those favored trains who had guides or from travelers who had crossed the continent before. So, because of the overwhelming need to leave their dear ones in some place which they might some day find again, they sometimes carried them many miles to be buries at tis accepted spot—where a stretch of hard-baked sage land at the end of a smudgy coulee still holds the now forgotten dead.”

[N.B. There is a marker for Simpson’s Hollow on Route 28 just past Mile 1119 on the Pony Express Bikepacking Route. Just past there is a dirt road that seems to lead to Simpson’s Gulch (about 3/4 of a mile to the Gulch)]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 239

Mile 554: Lodgepole Creek Road
“The Lodgepole Creek Road was unknown until 1857 and was used very little until ’61, when the government routed the new mail stages that way. Within a year or two the Indians grew so belligerent that the mail was rerouted to avoid the Sioux country along the North Platte . . . and the Pole Creek Road stepped out of the staging limelight as abruptly as it had stepped in. In its few years of intense activity, running the gamut of Civil War drama, romance of the mail coach, swarming tumult of the emigrant trail, and the horror of Indian warfare, have won for it a permanent place in history.”

[N.B. The Lodgepole Trail runs (roughly from Ovid (at Mile 554) to Bridgeport (Mile 642) where it rejoins the Ash Hollow Road up from the South California Crossing. (Paten, pg. 145]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 140