Yank's Station-Overland Pony Express Route in California

This was the last California stop. East of here the riders crossed into Nevada, so part of the plaque's job is to mark a boundary. Martin Smith put a trading post on this ground in 1851, and Ephraim Clement, universally called Yank, turned it into a hostelry on the Placerville-Carson Road. Warren Upson first came through on the evening of April 28, 1860 and handed his mochila on at Friday's. Clement sold up in 1873 to George Meyers, and the town around the site is Meyers still.

What the plaque says

Yank's Station This was the site of the most eastern remount station of the Central Overland Pony Express in California. Established as a trading post in 1851 by Martin Smith, it became a popular hostelry and stage stop operated by Ephraim "Yank" Clement on the Placerville-Carson Road. Pony rider Warren Upson first arrived here on the evening of April 28, 1860. Changing ponies he galloped on to Friday's in Nevada to deliver his mochila to Bob Haslam for the ride to Genoa. Used as a pony remount station until October 26, 1861, it was sold to George D. H. Meyers in 1873, and the name changed to Meyers. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 708 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the James W. Marshall Chapter No. 49, E Clampus Vitus, the Lake Tahoe South Shore Chamber of Commerce, and the Central Overland Pony Express Trail Association, April 3, 1960.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emerald Bay State Park — 8.2 mi
  A glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.
• Genoa — 14 mi
  Nevada's oldest town—a California Trail trading post and Carson Valley ranch country that came eight years before the silver and quietly outlasted it
• Cave Rock / De'ek Wadapush — 14 mi
  One of the most sacred places of the Wašiw—the Standing Gray Rock, a worn volcano the highway was blasted through and climbers bolted for sport, now closed and quiet again after the Washoe's long fight to protect it
• Glenbrook & Spooner Summit — 16 mi
  Lake Tahoe's east shore, where the basin was logged nearly clean to timber the Comstock—the forest that paid for the silver, and the century it has spent growing back

More markers nearby

• Site of Echo Summit — 3.1 mi
• Friday's Station-Overland Pony Express Route in California — 8.2 mi
• Strawberry Valley House-Overland Pony Express Route in California — 8.4 mi
• Sheridan — 11 mi