Sources generally agree on the identification of Guittard's Station as a Pony Express and stage stop. In late 1860, Burton saw the Pony Express rider arrive at Guittard's Station. Burton described the station as a "clump of board houses on the far side of a shady, well-wooded creek—the Vermillion, a tributary of the Big Blue River, so called from its red sandstone bottom, dotted with granitic [sic] and porphyritic boulders."

The George Guittard (Guttard) family arrived in Kansas in 1857, establishing their ranch on Vermillion Creek as the earliest permanent settlement in that part of Marshall County, Kansas. George's son, Xavier Guittard, managed the station, which alternated as a home or relay base at various times, as well as a stage stop. A large, two-story house provided living quarters and a waiting room for stage passengers, and the roomy barn accommodated a blacksmith shop and stalls for some twenty-four horses. (NPS)

This is a clump of board houses on the far side of a shady, well-wooded creek—the Vermilion, a tributary of the Big Blue River, so called from its red sandstone bottom, dotted with granitic and porphyritic boulders.

Our conductor had sprained his ankle, and the driver, being in plain English drunk, had dashed like a Phaeton over the “chuck-holes;” we willingly, therefore, halted at 11 30 A.M. for dinner. The host was a young Alsatian, who, with his mother and sister, had emigrated under the excitement of Californian fever, and had been stopped, by want of means, half way. The improvement upon the native was palpable: the house and kitchen were clean, the fences neat; the ham and eggs, the hot rolls and coffee, were fresh and good, and, although drought had killed the salad, we had abundance of peaches and cream, an offering of French to American taste which, in its simplicity, luxuriates in the curious mixture of lacteal with hydrocyanic acid.

At Guittard’s I saw, for the first time, the Pony Express rider arrive.

[page 27-8  The City of the Saints]