Existing comment:
The Station House:
Pony Express stations were placed approximately ten miles apart. Riders were assigned 75-mile-long portions of the trail and kept a speedy pace by switching horses at each station. New riders took over every 75-100 miles.
While some of the station houses were sturdy structures, most offered only slight protection against the elements. According to the explorer and author Sir Richard Burton, the station house at Sand Springs, Utah, was "roofless and chairless, filthy and squalid, with a smoky fire in one corner, and a table in the center of an impure floor, the walls open to every wind, and the interior full of dust." |