News From: NPEA Nevada Division
Report submitted by Arthur Johnson – 2017 Nevada Pony Express President
The Pony Express trail in Nevada goes through some wild and beautiful country. One of the station’s was called Simpson Park Station. It is on private property in a ranch, completely inaccessible to vehicles. For the past several years we have had permission to go through that ranch but it required that we go a half mile to the north to go through a gate that was kept locked and then retrace that same half mile inside the fence. I have wished that we could put a gate in to where we could take the shortest route not adding the extra mile however we were extremely thankful and blessed that we could go through the ranch at all. Then last fall I became aware of the fact that the ranch had been sold. This caused me grave concern as I did not know if we would still be able to cross through the ranch. I asked our member Elizabeth Uhart (who by the way was raised in Austin ) to contact the new owners and see if they would grant us permission still to cross the property. She tried for months but was never able to speak with anyone at that point she gave me their phone number so I called and left messages. The owners did call me back and gave us not only permission to cross the property but to put in the gate that I so long had desired to put in. I bought a gate from a local gate maker and then had a metal silhouette with the running Pony made by another friend who has a plasma machine. I then welded the silhouette in the top of the gate and bought a post and a padlock. Rex and I then went out on Sunday the 26th of May and drove as close as we could which was still about 500 feet away. We then carried and dragged the materials to the location dug the post hole and set the post. Re stretched the barb wire, drilled the holes for the hing bolts then installed the gate. 
The only mishap occurred when I began dragging the railroad tie with my horse, it scared Rex’s horse and in the process she stepped on and bruised his leg badly! He was one tough customer and made it through the rest of the day!
After we got the gate installed we rode our horses down the trail for five miles making sure that it was passable. Finding much to our surprise and delight the new owners had pushed a trail through with a Cat making it very friendly for horse travel. We have been very concerned that with the wet winter we have had that the valley bottom we have to go down might have been flooding. But we were pleased to find it very passable. We were blessed with a beautiful day, and no problems on the 120 miles out and 120 miles back, 2 hours on the gate! With the afore mentioned injury to Rex’s leg being the only exception! These pictures don’t do the beauty of this area justice! Hope you enjoy them! Happy Trails Arthur 