The Pony Express
(1) When the California Gold Rush began in 1848, miners on the West Coast had no fast communication with the rest of the United States. (2) Ships that sailed around South America took months to bring mail to the gold fields. (3) The first mail to go overland to California arrived in May 1848. (4) Carried by train and stagecoach, mail took a month to cross the continent.
(5) A California senator and a Missouri businessman decided California needed faster mail service. (6) They bought 400 horses, and hired a team of eighty riders. (7) They also set up 190 stations that stretched almost 2,000 miles along a route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. (8) They called there new mail service the Pony Express.
(9) On April 3, 1860 a train from the East brought mail into St. Joseph. (10) At four o'clock that afternoon, the first rider galloped west with it. (11) At the same time, another rider was traveling east from Sacramento with mail. (12) The average speed of the ponies was 8 miles per hour. (13) So the mail traveled about 200 miles a day. (14) A letter from Missouri usually reached California in ten days or less. (15) The fastest run ever was 7 days and 17 hours. (16) At first, mail was delivered only once a week in California. (17) That was upped to two weekly deliveries in June of 1860.
(18) Pony Express riders were young and lightweight. (19) Many were teenagers. (20) Each rider rode about 75 miles a day, changing horses five times. (21) They worked in all kinds of weather, day and night. (22) When a rider reached his home station, he handed his mailbag to another rider. (23) In a year and a half of operations, only one mail pouch was lost.
(24) The Pony Express was put out of business by new technology—the telegraph. (25) The first telegraph had been set up in the East in 1844. (26) It wasn't until 1860, however, that workers began to string telegraph wires across the West. (27) On October 24, 1861, the transcontinental telegraph was completed, and telegrams could be sent to and from California. (28) Two days later. (29) The Pony Express went out of business.
