Horseshoe Creek Pony Express Station

Horseshoe was a home station, the last of the Pony Express's second division, and the division superintendent, Joseph A. Slade, lived here with his wife, Molly. William Cody, fifteen in 1861, later wrote that he tended stock and sometimes rode the express from Horseshoe under Slade. Richard Burton, the British traveler, stopped here on the night of August 14, 1860. When raids closed the road in the spring of 1862, the stage company moved its line south through Denver, though the telegraph office here stayed open.

What the plaque says

530 yards south east of this monument on the Oregon Trail was the site of Horseshoe Creek Pony Express and U.S. Military telegraph and stage station built in 1860. Erected by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The clearest wagon ruts on the trail, worn by iron tires and cut deeper by travelers who hacked at the ledge to get their wagons over.
• Register Cliff State Historic Site — 22 mi
  The first camp out of Fort Laramie, where the oldest date on the rock reads 1829 and three emigrants never left.

More markers nearby

• Horseshoe Creek Station — steps away
• Oregon Trail — 15 mi
• Laramie Peak — 16 mi
• The Oregon Trail — 19 mi