Last updated: June 8, 2026
Place
Egan Canyon Station
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Location:
Approximately 10 miles west of US-93 on Egan Canyon Rd in White Pine Co., Nevada. Approximate site GPS 39.860706 -114.936268.
Significance:
Egan Canyon Pony Express Station was the site of a dramatic scene when the US Cavalry swept in to rescue 2 Pony employees from Paiute and Shoshone captors, who were preparing to burn them at the stake. Nearby is Fort Pearce Cemetery, where there lies a soldier who died in the firefight.
Designation:
Historic Site on the Pony Express NHT.
Amenities
2 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Scenic View/Photo Spot
Pony Express Division Superintendent Howard Egan established Egan Station in spring 1860, on the eve of the Pyramid Lake War. Though the station is long gone, the drive along the winding, narrow canyon is still worthwhile. This was a place where warriors once waited in ambush for travelers.
Egan’s son, also named Howard, narrowly escaped one such encounter while riding for the Pony Express. The station had not yet been built when he started west through the canyon that evening.
“I was about in the middle of Egan Canyon and, just before turning a sharp point ahead of me. . . on the side of the hill towards me the light of a fire was shining,” he recalled years later. He eased his pony forward until he could see the warriors camped along both sides of the road. Rather than taking another route, he made a bold decision.
“[S]o taking my pistol in my hand,” he said, “I rode on as close as I dared, then striking in the spurs and giving an awful yell. . .my gun began to talk, though pointed up in the air, and my yells accompanied each shot.” His daring charge startled the warriors, allowing him to escape. Later, Native friends told him the men hoped to catch an express rider “to see what he carried to make him travel so fast.”
In August, some 80 Paiute and Shoshone warriors overpowered the station keeper and an off-duty rider, demanding food and ammunition. Unsatisfied with what they received, they threatened the men, tied them to posts, and began piling sagebrush around them to burn.
Incoming eastbound Express rider Will Dennis spotted the commotion from a knoll behind the station. He wheeled his pony and raced back to alert a detachment of dragoons he had passed on the trail. As in a classic Western movie, the US cavalry charged to the rescue in the nick of time. The Pony Express men survived, though a soldier and 17 warriors died in the fight. The fallen soldier, Prvt. John Conley lies in Fort Pearce Cemetery nearby.
Travel writer Sir Richard Burton passed through by stagecoach on Oct. 5, 1860, and found the canyon unnerving. “An uglier place for sharpshooting can hardly be imagined,” he wrote. The roadbed was rough, twisting, and hemmed in by thickets and boulders, with hills rising sharply on both sides. When Burton’s party saw hillside campfires flicker and suddenly go dark, their anxiety grew. They arrived at the station site to find only “a chimney stack and a few charred posts.” The station had been burned days earlier in retaliation for the August fight. On the alert, Burton’s party reached the next station without incident.
To visit Egan Canyon today, turn west from US-93 near Shelbourne onto White Pine County Rd 21/ NV-489. In about 8 miles, turn left at Cherry Creek onto County Rd 23, which becomes Egan Canyon Rd. Continue 4.6 miles to the canyon head, where the road forks. The station site lay ahead on what is now private land. Bear right and continue ½ mile to Fort Pearce Cemetery.
Site Information
Location (Approximately 10 miles west of US-93 on Egan Canyon Rd in White Pine Co., Nevada. Approximate site GPS 39.860706 -114.936268.)