The Pony Express: Fast Horses and Brave Riders Helped Win the West
August 29th is National Pony Express Day. I admire those brave and versatile horses because that’s just how I try to be. The story of the Pony Express is an exciting part of horse history and I thought you might be as interested to learn about the famous horses and riders as I was!
~ Larks Home Run
Fastest Mail to the West
Pioneer stagecoach operators and freighters William H. Russell, William B. Waddell and Alexander Majors created the Pony Express in just two months. They assembled 120 riders, 184 relay stations, 400 horses and several hundred personnel and started making deliveries in April of 1860.
The first Pony Express mail headed west from Sacramento, California, before dawn on April 4, 1860, and bet makers wagered the riders wouldn’t make it beyond the Sierra Nevada mountains. They never counted on the scrappy Western horses and their riders. In spite of the odds, the first 185 mile run between Sacramento and Fort Churchill, Nevada, was made in 15 hours and 20 minutes and the route included miles of mountain trails deep in snow.
The relay system of relief stations stretched across what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. One brave rider would gallop between stations, switching horses every 10-15 miles and then, 75-100 miles later, he would hand-off to a new rider.
The Pony Express was fast and more than twice as fast as its competitors. In the mid-1800s, it took either 25 days to get mail to California via stagecoach or months aboard a ship, but the Pony Express took about 10 days. Their best time was in March 1861, when they carried a copy of Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address from Nebraska to California in just seven days and 17 hours.
The first Westbound Pony Express Letter
The first Eastbound Pony Express Letter
Daredevil Riders and Hardy Horses
The advertisement for riders asked for teenaged and slight riders: “Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”
Weighing between 100-125 pounds to help increase speed and endurance for the horses, the average age was 20 but they did hire riders as young as 14. “Bronco” Charlie Miller claimed he was only 11 when he joined the ranks.
Riders took a loyalty oath: “I do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while an employee of Russell, Majors and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God.”
Rule breakers were threatened with dismissal without pay (about $100-150 a month) but that didn’t seem to happen. An eyewitness named Richard Burton said he “scarcely ever saw a sober rider.”
One rider, 20-year-old Robert “Pony Bob” Haslam, completed the most legendary ride in Pony Express history in May 1860. After riding 75 miles from Nevada’s Friday’s Station east to Buckland Station, his relief rider refused to take over, terrified of the indigenous tribe of Paiutes along the way. Haslam jumped back in the saddle and completed a 190-mile run before delivering his saddle bag, or mochila. After a brief rest, he mounted a fresh horse and retraced his steps all the way back to Friday’s Station. “Pony Bob” traveled 380 miles in less than 40 hours — a Pony Express record.
Riders dealt with extreme weather conditions, harsh terrain and the threat of attacks by bandits and hostile indigenous tribes, but life was more dangerous for the stock keepers who manned the relief stations. Reports are that six riders died in the line of duty while as many as 16 stock hands died at the relay stations. Outposts were usually dirt floor shacks with sleeping quarters and corrals for the horses, and many were located in remote sections of the frontier vulnerable to ambush.
Good Horseflesh
The horses had to be exceptional. The mail was carried about 200 miles a day no matter the weather. They had to be able to out run the fast ponies of the indigenous tribes and to continue the pace if relay stations were destroyed. During his route of 80 to 100 miles, a Pony Express rider would change horses eight to 10 times. The horses were ridden at a fast trot or canter and, at times, a full gallop.
Lots of American stock and Western stock horses were chosen and many originated from the U.S. Army. Some of the horses were selected by Major P.L. Solomon, United States Marshal for California, who was tasked with selecting “as fine a collection of fleet-footed and muscular horses as could be found” and he turned to the native stock of California. Solomon also bought horses that were a combination of native stock and blooded American horses. The only known description of the horses was of the one on display before the first ride from California to Missouri, a “clean-limbed, hardy little nankeen-colored pony.”
At the west end of the Pony Express route in California, W.W. Finney bought 100 head of short-coupled stock called "California horses,” while A.B. Miller obtained another 200 native ponies in and around the Great Salt Lake Valley.
The various breeds included Morgans and Thoroughbreds, which were often used on the eastern end of the trail. Mustangs often trod the western and more rugged end of the mail route.
Buffalo Bill Cody
The most famous Pony Express rider, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, probably wasn’t a Pony Express rider at all. He claimed he started delivering mail for the Pony Express at the age of 14 and that he once rode 384 miles in a single run.
He did work as a messenger for the owners of the Pony Express but there is no record of him carrying the mail, and he was probably in school in Kansas during the company’s brief history. Whatever the truth, Buffalo Bill kept the memory of the Pony Express alive with his Wild West shows featuring Pony Express riders and horse swaps as a recurring stunt from 1883 until 1916.
Special Mailbags
The Pony Express used mailbags known as mochilas, the Spanish word for pouch or backpack. It was a leather saddle cover held in place by the rider’s weight. The four padlocked pockets — three for mail and one for the rider’s timecard — could hold up to 20 pounds of cargo. When it was time to switch horses, the riders would pull the mochila off one horse and then throw it onto the saddle of the next. Eventually, everything except one revolver and a water sack was removed from the pouches, allowing for a total of 165 pounds (75 kg) on the horse's back.
Money, Money, Money, Money
The cost of speedy mail was high. At first, it cost $5 for every half-ounce of mail (the equivalent of about $130 today), then $2.50, and by July 1861, $1. That was still steep for everyday people and the Pony Express was mainly used to deliver newspaper reports, government dispatches and business documents, mostly printed on tissue-thin paper to keep costs (and weight) down.
The service was a financial disaster and never made a profit. Though praised for its efficiency and spirit, the Pony Express was a financial failure. It grossed $90,000 and lost $200,000.
Not only were the operational costs high, but service temporarily halted soon after it began when the Pyramid Lake War erupted between the United States and the indigenous native Americans, the Paiutes. But that isn’t what shut down the Pony Express, it was the telegraph.
Transcontinental Telegraph Dealt the Deathblow
The service was finally rendered obsolete on Oct. 24, 1861, when Western Union completed the transcontinental telegraph line in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the Pony Express shut down two days later.
During its 19-month history, the riders successfully delivered 35,000 pieces of mail and traveled more than half a million miles across the American frontier.
Pony Express Legacy
From 1866 until 1889, the Pony Express logo was used by stagecoach and freight company Wells Fargo, which also provided secure mail service, but in June 2006 the United States Postal Service announced it trademarked the words "Pony Express."
In 1869, the United States Post Office issued the first U.S. postage stamp to depict an actual historic event, and the subject chosen was the Pony Express. In 1940 and 1960, commemorative stamps were issued for the 80th and 100th anniversaries of the Pony Express.
The Pony Express route was designated the Pony Express National Historic Trail on Aug. 3, 1992, by an act of Congress. You can tour the route, visit interpretive sites and museums, and hike, bike or horseback ride various trail segments.
The National Pony Express Association (NPEA) is a nonprofit, volunteer-led historical organization whose purpose is to preserve the original Pony Express trail and to continue the memory and importance of Pony Express in American history. Since 1980, the NPEA holds an annual re-ride in June. Members ride across the 1,966 mile route non-stop over 10 days. From St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, riders carry commemorative mail in mochilas. Each rider covers one to 10 miles and must be able to change horses and/or mochilas in less than 15 minutes.
What do you think? Would Mom would be interested in going one year?
~ Larks Home Run