Established in April 1860 as a subsidiary of a famous freight company, the Pony Express operated between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, using a continuous relay of the best riders and horses. The nearly 2000 mile route -- running through present-day Kansas, Nebraska, the northeast corner of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California -- included vast stretches of rugged terrain once thought impassable in winter. Pushing the physical limits of man and beast, the Pony Express ran nonstop. Summer deliveries averaged ten days, while winter deliveries required twelve to sixteen days, approximately half the time needed by stagecoach. When delivering President Lincoln's Inaugural Address, the Express logged its fastest time ever at seven days and seventeen hours.
The Pony Express was founded with high hopes for securing a lucrative government contract. Political pressures and the outbreak of the Civil War prevented such an arrangement. When the enterprise closed it was in the red, its founders having lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although a financial failure, the Pony Express is considered a success for keeping communication open with California during the early months of the Civil War and proving that a central route to the West could be traveled year round. Additionally, the mail service is credited with having lost only one mail pouch, or mochila, during its entire run.
Some 200 horsemen rode for the Pony Express. Most were in their late teens and early twenties and small in stature; theoretically, the lighter the rider, the faster the horse could travel. Famous riders included William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and "Pony Bob" Haslam.
During a typical shift riders traveled 75 to 100 miles, changing horses every ten to fifteen miles at relief stations along the route. Station keepers and stock tenders ensured that changes between horses and riders were synchronized so that no time was wasted. For their dangerous and grueling work riders received between $100 and $125 per month. A few with unusually treacherous routes were paid $150, more than twice the salary of the average station worker.
For a first-hand account of the Pony Express, read the interview with former rider George S. Stiers in American Life Histories, 1936-1940. Stiers remembers riding for the Pony Express longer than it actually operated, but his memories of life on the trail are in sync with other historical accounts.
For more resources on mail delivery and telecommunications:
- The Pony Express ran through parts of the country currently used for cattle ranching. For a thorough introduction to ranch life, including a view of all manner of horse gear, from horseshoes to saddles, browse the subject index in Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982.
- See over 100 photographs related to mail delivery, including images of mail trains, sleds, and wagons. Search across the American Memory photograph collections on mail.
- Learn more about Samuel F. B. Morse and Alexander Graham Bell and the 19th-century revolution in telecommunications. Visit Uniting a Nation: Two Giants of Telecommunications: the Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers and a preview of the Samuel Morse Papers.
- Search the Today in History Archive on Morse and Bell to learn more about Morse's dispatch of the first telegraph message, and Bell's invention of the first telephone and transmission of the first wireless telephone message. Also search on the term stamp to learn more about how mail delivery is assured.
- Search on the term pony express or mail in History of the American West, 1860-1920 to see images which include Seth Hathaway, a Pony Express rider who appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, a bronze plaque to the Pony Express riders, and the making of the Warner Brothers film Limited Mail.
