St. Joseph, MO

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and his brother Orion, recently appointed Secretary of the Nevada Territory, took a steamboat up the Missouri River from St. Louis to St. Joseph in July 1861. They reached St. Joseph’s Patee Hotel, which served as headquarters for the Pony Express and a stagecoach stop, on July 25, 1861. They paid $300 for tickets to Carson City, Nevada Territory, on a Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Company stagecoach.

November 22

Posts from St. Joseph, MO

We begin our westward trip at the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri

We begin our trip west by van across the Kansas plains from St. Joseph, Missouri, just as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his brother Orion did 150 years ago. They had paid $200 each in 1861 … Read more >>