HOLLENBERG RANCH AND THE PONY EXPRESS

Begun in 1858, the Hollenberg Ranch, four miles north and one mile east of here, served as a stop on the Oregon-California Trail until the late 1860s. Gerat and Sophia Hollenberg, German emigrants, sold food and other supplies, lodging, and draft animals to passing travelers. Settlers, freighters, soldiers, stagecoach passengers, and Pony Express riders all stopped there.

For a year and a half in 1860 and 1861, the Pony Express operated like a relay race delivering mail between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California.  Wiry riders, often mere boys, hurried their horses between stations that were about ten miles apart.  At each station they changed to a fresh mount and at every third station a rested rider took over.  Through such teamwork the mail could cross half a continent in about a third of the time required by stagecoach.  By mid-1861, however, the transcontinental telegraph was carrying messages at the speed of electricity, and the Pony Express could not compete.