The Pony Express was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-mounted riders. It operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California. It was operated by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company.
Washington County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and largest city is Washington. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 5,530. The county was named for George Washington, the 1st president of the United States.
Hanover is a city in Washington County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 690.
Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842, on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming, United States. It became a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. The Army established a military post here in 1858 during the Utah War, until it was finally closed in 1890. A small town, Fort Bridger, Wyoming, remains near the fort and takes its name from it.
Camp Floyd State Park Museum is a state park in the Cedar Valley in Fairfield, Utah, United States. The park includes a small part of the former Camp Floyd site, the Stagecoach Inn, and the Fairfield District School.
Butterfield Overland Mail was a stagecoach service in the United States operating from 1858 to 1861. It carried passengers and U.S. Mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California. The routes from each eastern terminus met at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then continued through Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, and California ending in San Francisco. On March 3, 1857, Congress authorized the U.S. postmaster general, at that time Aaron V. Brown, to contract for delivery of the U.S. mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. Prior to this, U.S. Mail bound for the Far West had been delivered by the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line since June 1857.
Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the western U.S. during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Col. and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
The Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company was a stagecoach line that operated in the American West in the early 1860s, but it is most well known as the parent company of the Pony Express. It was formed as a subsidiary of the freighting company Russell, Majors, and Waddell, after the latter two partners bought out Russell's stage line, the Leavenworth and Pikes Peak Express Company. The stage line had made its first journey from Westport, Missouri, to Denver on March 9, 1859.
The Pony Express Museum is a transport museum in Saint Joseph, Missouri, documenting the history of the Pony Express, the first fast mail line across the North American continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast. The museum is housed in a surviving portion of the Pike's Peak Stables, from which westward-bound Pony Express riders set out on their journey.
Fort Churchill State Historic Park is a state park of Nevada, United States, preserving the remains of a United States Army fort and a waystation on the Pony Express and Central Overland Routes dating back to the 1860s. The site is one end of the historic Fort Churchill and Sand Springs Toll Road. The park is in Lyon County south of the town of Silver Springs, on U.S. Route 95 Alternate, eight miles (13 km) south of U.S. Route 50. Fort Churchill was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961. A 1994 park addition forms a corridor along the Carson River.
The Patee House, also known as Patee House Museum, was completed in 1858 as a 140-room luxury hotel at 12th Street and Penn in St. Joseph, Missouri. It was one of the best-known hotels west of the Mississippi River.
Oak Grove Butterfield Stage Station is located in the western foothills of the Laguna Mountains, in northern San Diego County, California. It is located on State Route 79, 13 miles (21 km) northwest of Warner Springs and Warner's Ranch. The station was built on the site of Camp Wright, an 1860s Civil War outpost.
The Great Platte River Road was a major overland travel corridor approximately following the course of the Platte River in present-day Nebraska and Wyoming that was shared by several popular emigrant trails during the 19th century, including the Trapper's Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express route, and the military road connecting Fort Leavenworth and Fort Laramie. The road, which extended nearly 370 miles (600 km) from the Second Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, was utilized primarily from 1841 to 1866. In modern times it is often regarded as a sort of superhighway of its era, and has been referred to as "the grand corridor of America's westward expansion".
The Kansas Historical Society is the official state historical society of Kansas.
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as a route alternative to the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails through central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay to run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah, via stagecoaches in the early 1860s. Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until 1869 when the completion of the First transcontinental railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach.
Fort Halleck was a military outpost that existed in the 1860s along the Overland Trail and stage route in what was then the Territory of Idaho, now the U.S. state of Wyoming. The fort was established in 1862 to protect emigrant travelers and stages transporting mail between Kansas and Salt Lake City, Utah, and named for Major General Henry Wager Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri and later General-in-chief of the Union armies.
The Mud Springs Station Archaeological District, which includes the Mud Springs Pony Express Station Site, near Dalton, Nebraska, has significance dating to the mid-19th century. The Pony Express station at Mud Springs, staffed by U.S. soldiers, was attacked by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribesmen during February 4–6, 1865, in what became known as the Battle of Mud Springs.
Granger Station State Historic Site, also known as Granger Stage Station, South Bend Station and Ham's Fork Station, is a state park in Granger, Wyoming, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
O'Fallons Bluff is a section of bluffs about 20 miles (32 km) long that run along the south side of the Platte river near Sutherland in Lincoln County, Nebraska. The Oregon and California trails ran up and over these bluffs. They were characterized by American pioneers heading west to Oregon and California as sparse in vegetation with a number of violent incidents involving Native Americans. In the early 1860s, a Pony Express station was located about 5 miles (8 km) west of where the wagon trails went up the bluff. During construction of Interstate 80, the steep part of the bluffs were cut away but wagon ruts remained, which are marked by iron hoops signifying wagon wheels. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
