The Pony Express

The Pony Express. . , Some might say the idea for the Pony Express arose from a bad case of saddle sores. In 1849, W.M. Gwin, a senator from the new state of California, was making his way on horseback from San Francisco to Washington City. He and his companion, Mr. B.F. Ficklin, of the Kansas City freight firm, Russell, Majors and Waddell, had plenty of time to discuss the poor communication between the government and its growing union., It was on this lengthy trip that the two men came upon the innovative concept of a weekly mail express between St. Louis and San Francisco that would take just ten days. Upon his return to Washington City, Senator Gwin introduced a bill before Congress proposing the idea, but it soon took a back seat to other important concerns. The idea did not die in Congress, however. At high noon on April 3, 1860, thanks to private funding from Mr. Ficklin’s Kansas City employer, Colonel Alexander Majors, the first Pony Express rider left the station in St. Joseph bound for the West Coast., The Pony Express was a marvel of human and animal endurance. To cover the nearly 2,000-mile route, relay teams had to travel 250 miles each day. The ponies could ride up to 20 miles each (at around 12 miles per hour), which became the distance between relay stations. New riders and ponies waited at each station, and it took only a second or two for the two-sided saddle pouch filled with mail to be thrown from one pony to the next. Along the way, riders faced an unbelievable list of perils, ranging from Indian attacks to snowstorms that hid the road signs to riders relied on to help guide the way., The Pony Express carried the mail across the country for 15 years, after which it was replaced, sadly, by the telegraph. During that thrilling era, of man and mail versus nature, the riders and their trusty ponies never once failed to make the treacherous transcontinental trip in an amazing ten days., [The Pony Express only lasted from Apr 1860 to Oct 1861 – not 15 years]