Utah · Historic site
Camp Floyd
The army camp in Cedar Valley where the western desert crossing begins, and the inn that served it.
Position Utah County, Utah · 40.2572, -112.1039
Camp Floyd State Park Museum is in Fairfield, in Cedar Valley. The park covers part of the original camp site, the Stagecoach Inn and the Fairfield District School.
The camp housed the largest concentration of US troops in the country in the late 1850s, sent west during the Utah War, and it was abandoned within a few years as the Civil War pulled the army east. At its peak the settlement beside it was one of the larger places in the territory.
For anyone driving the Pony Express route this is the practical starting point: the last services before the desert, and the place to understand what the trail was connecting to.
Facts checked against the Wikipedia article Camp Floyd State Park Museum. The words above are ours.