The Pony Express Trail

Skinner has been a name in the history of winemaking in El Dorado County since 1861 when James Skinner planted his vineyard off Green Valley Road near the town of Rescue in the Sierra Foothills and began to produce native wines and brandy.  With a strategic location on the Pony Express Trail, he built a stone wine cellar capable of storing 15,000 gallons of wine. 

What was the Pony Express Trail?  This tidbit from the National Park Service website provides a brief explanation..." used by young men on fast horses to carry the nation's mail from Missouri to California in the unprecedented time of only ten days. The relay system became the nation's most direct and practical means of east-west communications before the telegraph, and it played a vital role in aligning California with the Union in the years just before the Civil War. "