Ephraim Hank's Pony Express Station

Ephraim Hanks kept the mail moving through these mountains when almost no one else would. A Mormon Battalion veteran turned frontier courier, he carried letters between Salt Lake and Fort Laramie through winters that once left him holed up in a cave eating flour-dusted beef until the snow let go. Later he ran a Pony Express and stage station here at Mountain Dell, between Big and Little Mountains. He is best remembered for riding out in 1856 to the freezing Martin handcart company with wagonloads of buffalo meat. The station is gone; the reservoir covers its ground.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emigration Canyon — 5.1 mi
  The final stretch of trail the Mormon pioneers took into the valley
• This Is The Place Heritage Park — 7.0 mi
  A living history village at the mouth of Emigration Canyon
• Natural History Museum of Utah — 7.3 mi
  A world-class museum built into the foothills above Salt Lake City
• Red Butte Garden — 7.4 mi
  A 100-acre botanical garden with panoramic valley views

More markers nearby

• Memories at Mountain Dell — 0.2 mi
• Little Mountain Summit — 1.7 mi
• Camp Grant — 1.8 mi
• Camp Grant Monument — 1.8 mi