pony express

     

The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the North American continent from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California from April 1860 to October 1861. Messages were carrie by horseback riders relay across the prairies, plains, deserts, and mountains of the Western United States. It briefly reduced the time for mail to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to around ten days. By traveling an easier shorter route and using mounted riders rather than stagecoaches, the founders of the Pony Express hoped to establish their service as a faster and more reliable conduit for the mail and win away the exclusive government mail contract.

Trivia about pony express

  • In March 1861 it delivered the mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento in a record 7 days, 17 hours
  • This short-lived enterprise employed Buffalo Bill Cody & ceased at the completion of the U.S. telegraph system
  • (Kelly of the Clue Crew holds up blue envelope with an eagle logo.) Express Mail, which delivers overnight, recalls the name of this service that delivered Lincoln's inaugural address to the West Coast in just 7 days
  • For the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great set up a mail delivery system similar to this Old West one
  • It cost $5 to send a 1/2-ounce letter via this service when it began in April 1860
  • A Remington painting shows the "Coming and Going of" this delivery service that came & went in less than 2 years' time
  • It's ad read, "Young, skinny fellows not over 18, must be expert riders & willing to risk death daily..."
  • It brought its last shipment of mail into Sacramento November 20, 1861
  • The National Postal Museum of the Smithsonian has exhibits on U.S. stamp history & this service that ran in 1860 & '61
  • The stations on the route of this old west mail service were set up about 10 miles apart
  • In 1861 Wells Fargo & Co. issued a stamp for this new service
  • Calamity Jane boasted that she rode for this short-lived delivery service
  • In 650,000 miles the mail was lost only once
  • In 1861 11-year-old Charlie Miller was the youngest rider in this service; he lived to be 105
  • On April 4, 1860 Jack Keetley became the first to change mounts at Rock Creek Station in this new mail service
  • Entrepreneurs William Russell, Alexander Majors & William B. Waddell founded this in 1860; it lasted 18 months

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