Please remember to exercise caution when exploring Nevada's Ghost Towns & Mining Camps. Open shafts, drifts going into mountainsides, and old buildings, are all DANGEROUS. Be aware of your surroundings, and let someone know where you are, especially if your plans change.

Smith Creek Station (Maestretti)
(Edwards Creek)

DIRECTIONS: From Brown's Station, continue west on Nevada 2 for 6.4 miles. Exit right and follow for 9.5 miles. Exit left and follow for 3.5 miles to Smith Creek.

"Smith Creek Station was the first Pony Express stop in Shoshone country. The station was named for one of Simpson's men, Captain Smith, when the Pony Express survey party passed the site on May 30,1859. Smith Creek had quite a violent history. The Territorial Enterprise reported in August 1860:

One day last week H. Trumbo, station keeper at Smith Creek, got into a difficulty with Montgomery Maze, one of the Pony Express riders, during which Trumbo snapped a pistol at Maze several times. The next day, the fracas was renewed when Maze shot Trumbo with a rifle, the ball entering a little above the hip and inflicting a dangerous wound. Maze has since arrived at this place (Carson City) bringing with him a certificate signed by various parties, exonerating him from blame in the affair and setting forth that Trumbo had provoked the attack.

In another incident, a Pony Express rider, William Carr, killed a man named Bernard Chessy, with whom he had quarreled earlier at Smith Creek. Carr later achieved the dubious honor of being the first man legally hanged in Nevada Territory. Yet another Pony Express rider, Bart Riles, met misfortune at Smith Creek; he was killed in a riding accident on May 30, 1860.

Sir Richard Burton visited the station on October 14, 1860, and described the site:

The station was sighted [sic] in a deep hollow. It had a good stone corral and the visual haystack, which fires on the hilltops seem to menace. Amongst the station folks we found two New Yorkers, a Belfast man, and a tawny Mexican named Anton. The house was unusually neat, and displayed even signs of decoration in the adornment of the bunks with osier taken from the neighboring creek. We are now in the land of the Pa Yua (Paiute)…I observed however, that none of the natives were allowed to enter the station house.

After both the Pony Express and the Overland Stage lines folded, Smith Creek became a successful ranching operation. The Maestretti family ran the ranch for three generations. A post office by that name opened on July 5, 1904, with Antonio Maestretti as postmaster. The office served the ranch until July 14, 1906. A school was established in 1903 and was used off and on until 1941. The ranch is still active today, and some of the original buildings remain. The adobe section of a half-adobe, half-rock building is part of the original Pony Express station. Other old willow-and thatched-roof buildings also remain."

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