Pony Express Route and Stage Stops

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Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail using relays of horse-mounted riders that operated from April 3, 1860, to October 1861 between Missouri and California in the United States of America.

Operated by Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company, the Pony Express was a great financial investment to the U.S. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.^[1] It became the West's most direct means of east-west communication before the transcontinental telegraph was established (October 24, 1861), and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States.

The Pony Express demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pony Express quickly became romanticized and became part of the lore of the American West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance of individual young, hardy riders and fast horses was seen as evidence of rugged American individualism of the Frontier times.

The In 1860, there were about 186 Pony Express stations that were about 10 miles (16 km) apart along the Pony Express route.^[7] At each station stop the express rider would change to a fresh horse, taking only the mail pouch called a mochila (from the Spanish for pouch or backpack) with him.

The employers stressed the importance of the pouch. They often said that, if it came to be, the horse and rider should perish before the mochila did. The mochila was thrown over the saddle and held in place by the weight of the rider sitting on it. Each corner had a cantina, or pocket. Bundles of mail were placed in these cantinas, which were padlocked for safety. The mochila could hold 20 pounds (9 kg) of mail along with the 20 pounds (9 kg) of material carried on the horse.^[14]Eventually, everything except one revolver and a water sack was removed, allowing for a total of 165 pounds (75 kg) on the horse's back. Riders, who could not weigh over 125 pounds (57 kg), changed about every 75–100 miles (120–160 km), and rode day and night. In emergencies, a given rider might ride two stages back to back, over 20 hours on a quickly moving horse.

It is unknown if riders tried crossing the Sierra Nevada in winter, but they certainly crossed central Nevada. By 1860 there was a telegraph station in Carson City, Nevada Territory. The riders received $100 a month as pay. A comparable wage for unskilled labor at the time was about $0.43–$1 per day.

Alexander Majors, one of the founders of the Pony Express, had acquired more than 400 horses for the project. He selected horses from around the west, paying an average of $200.^[15]These averaged about 14.2 hands (58 inches, 147 cm) high and averaged 900 pounds (410 kg)^[16] each; thus, the name pony was appropriate, even if not strictly correct in all cases.

Pony Express route[edit]

The approximately 1,900-mile-long (3,100 km) route^[17] roughly followed the Oregon and California Trails to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, and then the Mormon Trail (known as the Hastings Cutoff) to Salt Lake City, Utah. From there it followed the Central Nevada Route to Carson City, Nevada Territory before passing over the Sierra into Sacramento, California.^[18]

Kimball Stage Stop 

The Kimball Stage Stop was a station on the Overland Trail near Park City, Utah. Located in the Parley's Park valley near U.S. Route 40 at the head of Parley's Canyon, the station was built by William H. Kimball in 1862. Kimball also built a bridge across nearby Kimball Creek. The station's hotel was notable for its dinners, and was visited by Mark Twain, Walt Whitman and Horace Greeley, served at first by Kimball's wife Melissa Burton Coray Kimball, and later by another of Kimball's wives, Martha Vance Kimball, .^[2] The station also served the Holladay Stage and the Wells Fargo Express Company.^[3]

The chief building in the complex is the hotel. It is a T-shaped two-story sandstone building, housing dining rooms, guest rooms, a store, and for a time, a post office. Two log barns are part of the complex.^[2]

The Kimball Stage Stop was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1971.^[1]

Stagecoach Inn 

Camp Floyd was a short-lived U.S. Army post in the Cedar Valley (and now part of Fairfield), Utah, United States. The Stagecoach Inn was a nearby hotel which also served as a stagecoach stop and, during 1860-1861, a Pony Express stop. Both were listed on the National Register of Historic Placesin the 1970s, and now are included in a Utah state park known as Camp Floyd / Stagecoach Inn State Park and Museum.

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