Nevada’s Pony Express Trail

From April in 1860, young men once rode horses to carry mail from Missouri to California in the unprecedented time of only 10 days. This relay system was the most direct and practical means of east-west communications before the telegraph just 19 months after the Pony Express Service began.

Today you can follow the Pony Express National Historic Trail that covers the Pony Express route in eight states, (California,

Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming), and includes auto-touring, interpretive sites, hiking, biking, or horseback riding trail segments, visiting museums and historic sites, and much more.

Northwest Nevada Pony Express sites, markers, and ruins, can be found by traveling historic Highway 50, famously known as America’s Loneliest Highway, from Genoa west through Carson City to Dayton, Virginia City, Sand Mountain, and Cold Springs.

If you head towards Yerington, (turn off Hwy 50 and head down ALT Hwy 95 between Stagecoach and Silver Springs), you can visit Fort Churchill and Buckland Station. Both the fort and the station are stops on the Pony Express National

Historic Trail and the California National Historic

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Fort Churchill is now a Nevada State Park, which includes Buckland Station. Buckland Station was a way station for the Overland Stage Company and became a remount station on the Pony Express Route.

Even though Fort Churchill was built mainly as a show of force, and there were never any battles fought there, it was built as a permanent installation and was an important supply depot for the Nevada Military District (especially during the Civil War), a Pony Express stop, and a base for troops tasked with patrolling the overland routes. For more information on the Pony Express National Historic Trail call (801) 741-1012 or visit www.NPS.gov/poex.

Trail Map on NationalParkTraveling.com.