Rockwell Station was part of the Pony Express route, which operated from April 1860 through October 1861 and delivered mail between Missouri and California within a record 10 days. Orrin Porter Rockwell owned and operated a hotel and stable along the route after purchasing sixteen acres of land near the hot springs at the Point of the Mountain in July 1858 for $500 and establishing the Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel. His hotel served as a Pony Express station during the mail service's nineteen-month lifetime. Rockwell, born circa June 25, 1813, in Belchertown, Massachusetts, was a close friend and bodyguard of Joseph Smith Jr. and later a bodyguard for Brigham Young, and he was also known as a lawman who apprehended and dueled with criminals in the West. After the transcontinental telegraph was established, the Pony Express closed in 1861, though the Hot Springs Brewery and Hotel continued to operate for several years. Rockwell died of heart failure at age 64 on June 9, 1878, in Salt Lake City.