
The Pony Express, Telehgraph, and Overland Stage & Mail were routed via a main station at Ibapah.
Beginning on April 3, 1860, fast-paced Pony Express riders used Major Howard Egan’s home station at Deep Creek to exchange horses and riders. The Transcontinental Telegraph line was completed on October 26, 1861, eliminating the need for the pony riders. Afterward, Egan’s home ranch continued to furnish hay, grain, and meat to outlying mail company relay stations. It also provided meals and overnight accommodations for stage passengers.
The station was a small community within itself with a family residence, drivers’ sleeping quarters, an eating house with rest rooms, a hen house, and a dairy. There were stables, a bunkhouse, a telegraph office (from 1861 to 1883), a sawmill, and a fenced garden. A blacksmith shop and a general store were nearby. Daily tasks involved milking, cooking, breaking horses, horseshoeing, herding, gardening, planting, plowing, irrigating, and harvesting.
Daily mail and stage service to Ibapah ended in 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed to the north. Mail delivery was intermittent until a permanent post office was established in Ibapah in 1883. Thereafter, mail was delivered two or three times weekly.
This historic marker is located in Ibapah, Utah
