Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean. The largest subaerial volcano in both mass and volume, Mauna Loa has historically been considered the largest volcano on Earth. It is an active shield volcano with relatively gentle slopes, with a volume estimated at approximately 18,000 cubic miles (75,000 km3), although its peak is about 120 feet (37 m) lower than that of its neighbor, Mauna Kea. Lava eruptions from Mauna Loa are silica-poor and very fluid, and they tend to be non-explosive.

The community was established by King Kamehameha I to be his seat of government when he was chief of Kona before he consolidated rule of the archipelago, and it later it became the capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The capital later moved to Lāhainā, and then to Honolulu. Royal fishponds at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park were the hub of unified Hawaiian culture. The town later functioned as a retreat of the Hawaiian royal family.

Sources refer to this site as either Upper Sweetwater or South Pass Station but generally they agree on its identity as a station. Two French-Canadians managed station operations at South Pass, near the Continental Divide. Franzwa indicates South Pass in his Oregon Trail maps and specifically identifies Upper Sweetwater Pony Express Station several miles northeast of the pass. (NPS)

July of 1861, Samuel L. Clemens and his brother, Orion, arrived in St. Joseph by riverboat from St. Louis. "The first thing we did on that glad evening that landed us at St. Joseph was to hunt up the stage-office, and pay a hundred and fifty dollars apiece for tickets per overland coach to Carson City, Nevada."

Since Fort Kearney was a stage stop on the L. & P.P. Express Co. and C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. lines, it is likely that Russell, Majors, and Waddell also used this site as a Pony Express station. Other sources list Fort Kearney as a station or stopping place for Pony Express riders. Mattes and Henderson express doubt that Fort Kearney ever served as an official Pony Express station. Privately owned businesses were not granted space on U.S. military bases. However, Pony Express riders possibly stopped at Fort Kearney to service the mail needs of the military.

This was one of the original Pony Express stations built in the spring of 1860. It is difficult to say whether Bolivar Roberts or Howard Egan built Robert’s Creek. Some accounts say Bolivar Roberts and his crew built stations as far east as Robert’s Creek. However, Burton says Robert’s Creek was the western most extent of Egan’s division. It seems that the station was still intact around May, 1860. After this time it is thought that the station was destroyed by Indians and Bolivar Roberts set out to rebuild destroyed stations and restock them.

The canyon was named for Howard Egan who had been in the area since the 1850s. He later became a Pony Express agent. Egan Canyon was the site of many Indian ambushes. In July 1860, U.S. troops travelling from Fort Ruby to Schell Creek came upon an Indian attack at the station barely saving the lives of the 2 station masters. Indian survivors of that skirmish took revenge on the next Pony Express stop, Schell Creek Station, killing the stationmaster and 2 assistance and running off all of the livestock.

Sources generally agree on the identity of a Pony Express station at Fort Laramie. However, the exact location of the station at or near Fort Laramie remains unknown. Nevertheless, the well-known fort's distance from stations at Sand Point and Verling's Ranch makes the area just west of the post a logical station site. Fort Laramie's adobe-stone sutler's store, which still exists, housed a post office in the 1850s, 1870s, and 1880s. Its status during the Pony Express era remains unknown.