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The Cold Springs Pony Express Station is located near to Highway 50 between Fallon & Austin, Nevada. The ruins of this station were built in 1860 or 1861. From a nearby sign:
The Pony Express
In early 1860, a trio of eastern businessmen came up with a novel idea to speed mail service between Missouri and the West Coast: a series of relay riders galloping across the West - the fabled Pony Express. Service began on April 3, 1860 when riders left from St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California with packets of letters. There were to be 190 stations to rest horses and riders, one of them Cold Springs. This is the original site, though sometime in 1861 the Pony Express station was moved to the stage station.
Lasting only 19 months, the Pony Express was done in by the wires of the Transcontinental Telegraph. Though short-lived, the Pony Express's pounding hoffs caught people's fancy around the world, creating a legendary chapter in the settlement of the American West. In its brief history, the Pony Express's riders carried 34,753 pieces of mail and rode total mileage equal to 24 trips around the world.
The ride of "Pony Bob" Haslam
One of the most committed Pony Express riders was "Pony Bob" Haslam. On May 11, 1860, he left Friday's Station at Lake Tahoe on a run to Fort Churchill. Reaching Carson City expecting to find a fresh mount, he discovered all of the horses had been commandeered by a mob organized to fight a Paiute Indian uprising. He whipped his tired pony on to Fort Churchill. The next rider refused to go because of the Paiute threat, so Haslam continued on to Sand Springs and Cold Springs before reaching Smith's Creek, about 15 miles east of here. Arriving early on May 12, he handed off his eastbound mail to another rider.
After sleeping eight hours, "Pony Bob" awoke, took the just-arrived westbound mail and set out for Fort Churchill. At Cold Springs, he found that the Paiutes had burned the station, killed the keeper, and stolen the horses. Haslam rode on to Fort Churchill, rested an hour, then rode through Carson City to Friday's Station, arriving May 13. He had gone for 36 hours and ridden 380 miles since he left.
Some portions of this station were added later on in late 1860 to further fortify the structure during the Paiute Indian War.
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