The Pony Express has a hold on the American imagination wildly out of proportion to its actual role in the history of the West. The system of transporting mail to California by a relay of lone riders on swift horses ran less than eighteen months in 1860-1861 and failed by every measure of success. Nevertheless, it has become the most iconic symbol of the West. Scott Alumbaugh was so taken with the Pony Express that at age 62 he bikepacked 1,400 miles of the trail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah. Alumbaugh’s journey took five weeks on a route that was mostly off-road, sometimes through remote territory. Along the way he came to see the celebrated Pony Express as a collection of fables based on a few historical facts and reshaped into a symbol of the spirit that “won the West.” On The Pony Express Trail: One Man’s Bikepacking Journey to Discover History from a Different Kind of Saddle recounts Scott Alumbaugh’s experience bikepacking the Pony Express Trail during the summer of 2021. The narrative follows his day-to-day experiences and impressions—the challenges, the sites he visited, the country he rode through, and the interactions with the people he met—while taking a fresh look at the real Pony Express in the context of mid-1800s historical events along the trail: The Mexican-American, Utah, and Paiute Wars; the California and Pike’s Peak gold rushes; the overland emigration of hundreds of thousands to Oregon and California; the exodus of tens of thousands of Mormons to Utah; and the increasingly contentious fight over slavery along with the looming threat of civil war.

Uncovering Sin, Scandal and Sensuality In the late 1840s, the new frontier west of the Missouri River opened its floodgates to opportunity and adventure. In a new land, where men were lonely and women scarce, prostitutes poured in to ply their trade wherever they could--under trees, in wagons or random shanties. Within decades, prostitution expanded into cities and towns. Red light districts, brothels and cribs sprouted like wildflowers. Ogden's notorious madam Belle London enticed Salt Lake Councilmen to hire her to oversee their one hundred fifty room crib stockade. Park City's Mother Urban successfully defended her sixteen row houses as "necessities" for thousands of miners. The ballyhooed brothels of Helper stimulated "hunting trips" for Salt Lake men willing to travel for sex. Award-winning author Eileen Hallet Stone combed newspapers, archives and court cases to examine the lives, equity and infamy of Utah prostitution.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press It operated less than two years. It lost an enormous amount of money. But the Pony Express delivered the mail across a continent at a critical time and captured the imagination of people all over the world like few events in the history of the American West.

Emigration Canyon is well known in Utah as the route by which pioneers, in 1847, reached Great Salt Lake Valley to establish the state's first lasting Euro-American settlements. Before and after 1847 the canyon had an interesting history, which included the Donner-Reed party, the Pony Express and Overland Stage, mining and sheep herding, a narrow-gauge railroad, a major resort, a brewery, and the transformation of recreation areas and cabin sites into year-round residential neighborhoods. This well-illustrated, detailed history tells the story of a unique place, but its counterparts can be found across the West and America wherever the development of wild and scenic areas has been shaped by the growth and needs of neighboring cities. In this second edition, new illustrations and maps, new information and stories, a significantly expanded chapter on the Emigration Canyon Railroad, and a new chapter on the modern history, bring to life the story of a place and its people.