In the fall of 1859, a new route of the Oregon-California Trail ran from the South Platte to the North Platte River by following Lodgepole Creek to this point and then turning north. The 1860-1861 Pony Express also used this route, and the Pole Creek station stood just south of here on the north bank of Lodgepole Creek. Its mud walls were reportedly papered with magazine and newspaper pages of the day. Beginning in July 1861, the Overland Stagecoach service and the Transcontinental Telegraph line followed the same transportation route. The telegraph line's completion on October 24, 1861, soon ended the Pony Express, and in 1867 the westbound rails of the Union Pacific passed this way as another new stage in transportation.