 |
| Coming and Going of the Pony Express, by Frederic Remington, 1900 |
Last Tuesday, the Google Doodle commemorated the 155th
anniversary of the first Pony Express delivery with an interactive doodle that
I did not play because dammit, Google, I have shit to do. Despite appearances,
Web content does not write itself. But I noticed the doodle anyway, and it
inspired me to write this blog post.
The Pony Express was the brainchild of these three men,
William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell:
 |
| No, I don't know which is which. |
Russell, Majors, and Waddell were in the shipping business
and hoped to win a government contract for their mail delivery service, which
was the first to allow Gold Rush settlers in the new state of California to
contact the loved ones they’d left behind back east. East Coast dwellers at the
time benefited from the U.S. Postal Service, which was founded in 1775. But,
mind-boggingly, at the time the Pony Express was founded in 1860, there was no
reliable means of communication between the East and West Coasts.
The three business partners put the Pony Express together over
the course of two months in 1860, because they didn’t have the Internet to
distract them. The service initially hired 120 riders, who were paid $100 a
month, or about $2,857 in today’s money. Most unskilled laborers at the time
could hope to earn about $857 a month if they were very well-paid.
The Pony Express riders worked for their money. Riding at a
pace of 10 to 15 miles an hour for eight to 10 hours at a stretch and changing
horses every 10 miles, they were able to achieve what many people of the era
called an impossible feat – delivering mail from California to the nearest
bastion of civilization, St. Joseph, Missouri, in just ten days. One hundred
fifty years later, we get impatient if an email doesn’t send right away.
The first westbound delivery reached its destination in San Francisco
at 1:00 a.m. on April 14, 1860. A single letter carried on that trip survives
today:
 |
| The envelope, embossed with a 10-cent postage stamp, was issued by the USPS in 1855. They took upcycling seriously back in the day. |
Though the Pony Express delivered about 35,000 letters in
its nineteen-month span, only about 250 of those letters remain extant. The service
didn’t handle many deliveries, due to its high cost – at the time of the
inaugural delivery in 1860, it cost $5 to send a half-ounce letter from
Sacramento to St. Joseph, or about $142 in today’s money. By the time of the
final delivery in October 1861, the price had dropped to $1 – about $27 in
today’s money. These days, you can send a piece of First Class Mail weighing as
much as one ounce to any address in the country, no matter how remote, for just
49 cents, and it will usually arrive in three to seven days. But of course,
that’s too slow.
|
| "In my day..." |
The Pony Express sought young, energetic riders “not over
eighteen.” They had to weigh fewer than 125 pounds, and had to swear an
oath on a special edition, Pony Express Bible not
to swear, drink, or fight with other members of the firm. I guess it’s implied
that they were allowed to fight with non-members, since this is the Wild West we’re
talking about.
Famous riders include William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who
signed on at the age of 15, and later became famous for being Buffalo Bill. He
made his longest ride when he made a round trip from Red Buttes Station to
Rocky Ridge Station in Wyoming after he learned that his relief rider had come
down with a sudden case of being dead. He rode 21 horses across 322 miles (518
km) and completed the journey in 21 hours, 40 minutes.
Jack Keetley, who joined the Pony Express at the age of 19
and delivered mail throughout the entire 19 months of the service’s existence, made
his longest ride across 340 miles (550 km) over the course of 31 hours in which
Keetley stopped only to change horses – he did not eat or rest. When he arrived
at his destination, he was asleep in the saddle.
The most badass Pony Express rider, IMO at least, was Robert “Pony
Bob” Haslam, an Englishman who immigrated to the United States during his
teens. He was one of the riders who helped complete the fastest ever Pony
Express delivery, that which delivered the results of the 1860 Presidential
election to California in only 7 days and 17 hours. His portion of the ride covered
120 miles in eight hours, 20 minutes. He holds the record for longest Pony
Express ride, a 380 mile (610 km) round trip from San Francisco to Smith’s
Creek. He made the trip because when he arrived at his original destination,
Buckland’s Station, he found his relief rider so afraid of the Indians that he
refused to sally forth. Haslam agreed to press on, but during his return trip,
he ran afoul of the Indians that had so frightened his colleague, and took an
arrow through the jaw, an injury which cost him three teeth.
 |
| But none of his dignity. |
The Pony Express never won the government contract its
founders hoped for, but during its lifetime only one of its deliveries failed
to arrive on schedule. The mailing, which left San Francisco on July 21, 1860,
reached St. Joseph two years later (no, I don’t know what happened). The Pony
Express closed on October 26, 1861, two days after the completion of the
transcontinental telegraph made it obsolete. By the time it shut its doors, the
Pony Express had earned about $90,000 dollars (over $2.4 million today) and
lost about $200,000 (over $5.4 million today).
