Last updated: June 18, 2025
Place
Woodford's Station
NPS Video
Quick Facts
Location:
Woodfords, California. The Pony Express Station and Woodford's Hotel were located where the Mad Dog Cafe sits today.
Significance:
Lodging located along the California Trail and a remount station on the Pony Express.
Amenities
1 listed
Food/Drink - Restaurant/Table Service
Pony Express California No. 1 Remount Station (used only during April 1860)
(Woodford's)
(Woodford's)
Daniel Woodford opened a hotel with a curious name, “The Sign of the Elephant,” on the Carson Route of the California Trail in 1849. The name comes from a popular 19th century expression, “seeing the elephant,” meaning a sight or experience that seemed unusual, exciting, or in some cases, frightening. If overlanders had not yet seen the elephant by they time they reached this establishment on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, they were certain to spot it on the rugged wagon trail through the mountains ahead. The hotel became the heart of a small community—the oldest non-native settlement in the region and an important emigration waypoint between Genoa, NV, and Placerville, CA—that eventually took on Woodford’s name. The Sign of the Elephant burned down long ago, but a store that opened nearby in 1854 is occupied today as a private home known as Wade House. In April 1860, with the opening of the Pony Express mail relay, Pony riders followed the Carson Route through Woodfords because a more direct route over Johnson Pass was blocked by snow. For five weeks, April 3 through April 29, Pony riders stopped at Woodfords to change horses.
In May, after warming weather reduced the snow load, the mail riders began spurring their horses west up Kingsbury Grade and over Daggett Pass to Lake Tahoe. The new route shortened the ride by many miles and eliminated three stops to change horses.
Today’s visitors to Woodfords can enter the community on Old Pony Express Road, which overlies the original trail and parallels CA-88. Wade House, a small house currently painted green, can be viewed on the right side of Old Pony Express Road shortly after the turnoff from CA-89. Several monuments to Woodfords and Pony Express history are found along both sides of the road beginning near the present-day market.
A Woodford’s monument is nestled among trees immediately southwest of the market and the Pony Express monument is on the opposite side of the road at a parking turnout a few yards farther southwest. To see the original site of the Sign of the Elephant Hotel, continue along the road to the local community church.
Site Information
Location (Woodfords, California)