The Pony Express was an overland mail service that carried messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages by horseback from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, using relay stations spaced about 10 miles apart over more than 2,000 miles. Although it did not stop at this site, it passed by here on the route between Sacramento and points east. The first two stations out of Sacramento were Five Mile House and Fifteen Mile House, near or in what is Rancho Cordova. Five Mile House stood on the south side of Folsom Boulevard one block west of Power Inn Road, and Fifteen Mile House stood on the south side of White Rock Road one block east of Sunrise Boulevard. The first rider to pass this spot was Sam Hamilton, who went by at 3:45 a.m. on April 4, 1860, heading east. After riding seven miles from Sacramento, he followed the road on the north side of the Sacramento Valley Railroad tracks along what closely follows today's Folsom Boulevard, then the route turned east onto White Rock Road toward Placerville. All eastbound and westbound trips used this route, though mail was sometimes moved by rail and river steamer. The Pony Express lasted only 19 months, undone by the completion of the transcontinental telegraph and by lack of profit. Wells Fargo & Co. assumed charge of the segment from San Francisco to Placerville on July 1, 1861, and Pony Express mail was mostly carried by train in both directions between Sacramento and Folsom until the last delivery to San Francisco on Nov. 20, 1861. The last rider to pass here was on a westbound trip on June 30, 1861.