Last updated: June 18, 2026
Place
Point Lookout Station
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Location:
Point Lookout Pony Express station site is on Pony Express Rd, part of BLM’s Pony Express Backcountry Byway, about 28 miles southwest of the community of Fairfield. GPS 40.1196388889, -112.5765833333
Significance:
Point Lookout Station was used by both the Pony Express and the Overland Stage in the early 1860s. Paiute warriors frequently attacked stations, including this one, along this stretch of trail during the Pyramid Lake War of 1860.
Designation:
Historic site on the Pony Express National Historic Trail.
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
2 listed
Parking - Auto, Scenic View/Photo Spot
From Lookout Pass or one of the nearby hilltops in Utah’s Onaqui Mountains, look
west intothe distant desert once known as Piute Hell. Trail lore holds that Overland Stage drivers—or maybe Pony Express riders— were warned to “look out for Indians” in this area during the Pyramid Lake War, when Paiute and other Great Basin warriors
shutdown the Pony Express in June-July 1860. A turnout at the pass, no longer in danger of attack, provides opportunity for a long gaze at the view, a picnic table, and a boulder monument commemorating a 20th century leader in the sheep industry of this area.
About 0.7 mile down the northwestern flank of the mountains is Brush Hollow, a flat where the Point Lookout Pony Express and stage station operated in the early 1860s. An old stone monument beside the road commemorates the Pony Express, and a silver-colored steel fencepost marks the station site 30 yards northeast of the monument. The station, mentioned by a traveler passing through on April 15, 1860,
was a 2-roomlog cabin. (The nearby concrete water catchment system post-dates the trails era.) By September, though, the station was a ruin, possibly destroyed by Paiute warriors who patrolled this stretch of the trail.
Across the road from the monument, a stone and concrete enclosure protects the remains of a later homesteader’s pet terriers and, it is claimed, three emigrants who died along the trail. The dogs belonged to Libby Rockwell, who lived in this desolate place with husband Horace Rockwell, brother of famous (or infamous) Utah figure
Orrin Porter Rockwell. Childless “Aunt Libby” smoked a pipe and, according to those who knew her, treated her dogs better than her hired men. She paid a stoneworker to build a wall around her pet cemetery, and today the enclosure is the only structure still standing at Point Lookout.
To reach this site, from Fairfield, UT, follow UT-73 westbound for 5 miles. Turn left onto E. Faust Rd and drive 13.6 miles to UT-36, where a monument and several wayside exhibits mark Faust Pony Express Station. Turn left on UT-36 and in about ½ mile turn right onto Pony Express Rd. Reach Lookout Pass in 8.4 miles, then continue 0.7 miles to Lookout Point Pony Express Station site.
Site Information
Location (Point Lookout Pony Express station site is on Pony Express Rd, part of BLM’s Pony Express Backcountry Byway, about 28 miles southwest of the community of Fairfield. GPS 40.1196388889, -112.5765833333 )