Lookout Pass
The climb out of Rush Valley and the first real gap in the mountains heading west.
Subject
Historic trails
Most nineteenth century American routes are under a highway now. A few crossed ground so unwanted that the road still follows the original line.
The Pony Express, Utah section
Twelve station sites from Lookout Pass to Deep Creek, covered in westbound order. This is the fullest thing on the site.
Davis Mountain and Skull Valley
The descent into Skull Valley, and the beginning of country that people have been leaving for a century.
Simpson Springs
The most reliable water for fifty miles in any direction, and the best preserved station on the whole Utah stretch.
The Old Riverbed
A dry channel cut by a river that stopped flowing when the last ice age ended.
Dugway Pass and Black Rock Station
A steep cut through the Dugway range, and a station named for the volcanic rock beside it.
Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge
Ten thousand acres of spring-fed marsh in the middle of a salt desert, and the strangest thing on the route.
Fish Springs to Boyd Station
The leg where the desert gives way to the first grass, and one of the few stations with standing walls.
Willow Springs Station
The station that became a town, and one of the last inhabited places on the route.
Round Station, Deep Creek Canyon and Overland Canyon
Where the trail leaves the flat and goes into the mountains, through the canyon that gave everyone trouble.
Canyon Station and Deep Creek Canyon
The original Canyon Station site, in a place chosen for shelter and later regretted for it.
The Canyon Station attack
In July 1863 the station was attacked and burned, and the men there were killed.
Deep Creek
The last Utah station before Nevada, under the highest mountains in the western desert.
Being added
The Santa Fe Trail, the California Trail and the Overland route all cross ground covered elsewhere on this site, and all three deserve the same station by station treatment. They are not here yet.
Rather than publishing a thin page per trail now, they will appear when the research is done. The states page tracks what is covered and what is queued.