The Pony Express Station
The pony express was created in an effort to find a faster method of communication across America.
The first journey began on April 3, 1860, with riders starting in St. Joseph, Missouri, and relaying through to San Francisco, California. This 1,966-mile journey reduced the time of getting news across the country from twenty-one to ten days. Approximately one hundred relay stations were established. Only a year and a half later, shortly after the introduction of the transcontinental telegraph line on October 24, 1861, the Pony Express was gone. But the romantic image of hard-riding young men outrunning wild Indians through all kinds of weather lives on in the history of the American West.
The first station in Salt Lake City was located on the east side of Main Street a block south of Temple Square. Nine miles to the south was the next station called “Traveler’s Rest.” To the east, the next station above Salt Lake City was Mountain Dell between Little and Big Mountains.
Plaques on the monument on Main Street (set in the public sidewalk in front of where the old station stood) show likenesses of the three founders and show a small relief map of the Pony Express trail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.
