Several notable sources list Prairie Gate or Eight Mile Station as a Pony Express station, even though it was not listed on the 1861 mail contract station, and its exact location remains unknown. The station possibly existed on the present-day Goshute Indian Reservation, and/or it may have been at Eight-Mile Springs, so-called because of its distance to Deep Creek. It is thought that this station was probably erected after July of 1861 and was part of the Pony Express route for approximately three months.
Prairie Gate Station The final Nevada station (or first for westbound riders) was built a couple months after the trail opened to break up the long ride between Utah’s westernmost station, Deep Creek, to Antelope Springs in Nevada. The premature end of Antelope Springs also made Prairie Gate an integral stop. The station was also referred to as Eight Mile Station.
The road runs to the southwest down the Deep Creek Valley, and along the left bank of the western rivulet. Near the divide we found a good bottom with plenty of water and grass; the only fuel was the sage bush, which crackled merrily, like thorns, under the pot, but tainted the contents with its medicinal odor. The wagons were drawn up in a half circle to aid us in catching the mules, the animals were turned out to graze, the men were divided into watches, and the masters took up their quarters in the wagons. Age gave the judge a claim to the ambulance, which was admitted by all hands; I slept with Scotch Joe, an exceedingly surly youth, who apparently preferred any thing to work. At 8 PM a storm of wind and rain burst upon us from the SW: it was so violent that the wagons rocked before the blast, and at times the chance of a capsize suggested itself. The weather was highly favorable for Indian plundering, who on such nights expect to make a successful attack.
To the Wilderness, 4th October.
We awoke early in the frigid SW wind, the thermometer showing 39 F. After a few hundred yards we reached Eight mile Springs, so called from the distance to Deep Creek. The road, which yesterday would have been dusty to the hub, was now heavy and viscid, the rain had washed out the saleratus, and the sight and scent, and the country generally, were those of the environs of a horse pond. An ugly stretch of two miles, perfectly desert, led to Eight mile Spring Kanyon, a jagged little ravine about 500 yards long, with a portaled entrance of tall rock. It is not, however, considered dangerous.
(The City of the Saints, p 464-5)