The Pony Express Station at Platte Bridge
Near Casper, Wyoming
From April of eighteen sixty to October of eighteen sixty-one, this crossing was a Pony Express station. Riders coming west from Fort Laramie stopped here to change horses, then pushed on toward the Sweetwater River and the long climb to South Pass.
The Pony Express lasted eighteen months before the transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete overnight. The moment the final wire connected the coasts, there was no longer any reason to risk a rider's life carrying letters at five dollars per half ounce across nearly two thousand miles of hostile terrain. The company went bankrupt shortly after.
The riders were young. The company reportedly preferred men without dependents, for obvious reasons. They passed through here on their way to becoming legend, in a venture that lasted barely long enough for anyone to realize what it was.
