To experience the Pony Express for yourself, here are a half-dozen sites to visit along the Pony Express National Historic Trail. “There’s something about the romance of the Pony Express that draws people in.” “I love commemorating this piece of history,” says Patrick Hearty, who has been participating in the re-ride for decades with his family. And the National Pony Express Association holds an annual re-ride each summer, where teams of riders replicate the route and deliver real mail. Even 160 years later, the National Park Service operates the Pony Express National Historic Trail, which offers an interactive map with details on former stations and other important sites. Museums across the country have artifacts from the service’s heyday in their holdings, including the National Postal Museum, which has an original stamped envelope and a replica mochila. Re-enactment riders following in the "hoof steps" of Pony Express riders.ĭespite being short-lived, the Pony Express has been memorialized in numerous ways, from being celebrated on postage stamps to being the subject of popular movies, including the 1953 western Pony Express starring Charlton Heston. On October 26, 1861, just two days after the debut of the transcontinental telegraph system, the Pony Express was shuttered for good.
Unfortunately, the service quickly proved to be unsustainable, remaining in the red throughout its short run. The steady gig was popular amongst cowboys, such as William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who supposedly rode his first stint at 14 years of age. The fastest delivery was five days, and the letter contained an announcement that Abraham Lincoln won the presidency. Otherwise, the sender would incur more expenses by weight.”Ĭosting $5/per ounce (equivalent to roughly $164 today after inflation), the high price tag explains why the Pony Express service was predominately used by businesses and newspapers that could afford the hefty sum. People would use shorthand and codes, the bare minimum to keep news reports moving. That’s why the mail itself was on slips of paper that were tissue thin and printed with indelible ink, so it wouldn’t bleed if it got wet. “Weight was an issue, and it was important to keep it down so it would be less of a burden on the horses. “For the service to work, information had to get there faster than regular mail,” says Lynn Heidelbaugh, a curator for the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum.
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On average, a rider would travel for up to 100 miles at a time, changing horses they were riding at full gallop every 10 to 15 minutes.
Riders would carry the mail in a mochila (a leather knapsack) before passing it along to the next rider at one of the 190 designated stations along the route. However, the new delivery service, which was operated by the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, a stagecoach line, cut delivery times significantly, making it particularly appealing to newspaper publishers as a means to spread the news like wildfire. With a roughly 2,000-mile route stretching from Sacramento, California, to Saint Joseph, Missouri, the mail service employed relays of riders who would make the ten-day journey, rain or shine, on horseback through the Rocky Mountains and across the Great Plains, all in the name of delivering the mail.īefore the founding of the Pony Express on April 3, 1861, it wasn’t uncommon for pieces of mail to take weeks or even months to travel across the country. For an 18-month span from 1860 to 1861, one of the quickest and most reliable ways to send mail across the United States was via the Pony Express.
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