Last updated: June 6, 2026
Place
Mounds Springs Nevada
Photo/Steve Allison
Quick Facts
Location:
Mound Springs is in Independence Valley, Nevada, at the eastern foot of Spruce Mountain Ridge. It is about 13.5 miles east of the intersection of US-93 and NV-229 and 27.5 miles south of I-80. Springs [PRIVATE PROPERTY] GPS 40.712599 -114.764704; trail marker GPS 40.7163666667 -114.7721833333.
Significance:
Mound Springs was a small but very welcome oasis for travelers going west on the Hastings Cutoff across hot, dry Independence Valley.
Designation:
Historic Site on the Pony Express and California NHTs.
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
MANAGED BY:
Private
Amenities
1 listed
Scenic View/Photo Spot
Spring mounds occur in arid areas when geological conditions force groundwater, salts, and minerals to the surface, where the deposits gradually form a mound. The 1841 Bidwell-Bartleson Company, crossing Independence Valley farther north, did not find these curious springs, but travelers on the Hastings Cutoff stopped here in 1846-1850.
Edwin Bryant, traveling with a mule pack train ahead of the Donner-Reed Party on the Hastings Cutoff, described the site during his stopover on Aug. 7, 1846—a day so miserably hot that the company’s leather bridle reins dried “into a crisp.” In Independence Valley near the foot of Spruce Mountain Ridge, Bryant’s packers found a “small oasis, an acre or two of green vegetation, near the centre of which were one or two small springs or wells of cool fresh water.” The men and mules refreshed themselves “with the most grateful beverage of this fountain of the desert” before continuing into the mountains.
John Wood stopped at Mound Springs on Aug. 1, 1850. “[H]ere the waters spring out of several nobs six or eight feet higher than the surrounding country, and is very warm,” he wrote in his journal. “These mounds are very mirey in places where the water oozes out, and a man can stand on one and shake the ground for fifty feet around. Here we found good grass only around the springs, the whole country around being a perfect desert.”
Today the springs are on private property, remote from paved highways. A t-shaped trail marker on adjacent public lands offers an emigrant journal quote: “Hastings Cutoff – Mound Springs & Spruce Mtn ‘The spring issued from the top of a considerable mound that would shake to its centre from the steps of one man yet scores were on it at once’ – Madison B. Moorman, Aug. 7, 1850.”
Reaching this area requires a high clearance vehicle, detailed maps showing the network of unsigned desert roads, and a driving guide such as those published by the nonprofit organization, Trails West, Inc.
Site Information
Location (Mound Springs is in Independence Valley, Nevada, at the eastern foot of Spruce Mountain Ridge. It is about 13.5 miles east of the intersection of US-93 and NV-229 and 27.5 miles south of I-80. Springs [PRIVATE PROPERTY] GPS 40.712599 -114.764704; trail marker GPS 40.7163666667 -114.7721833333.)