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The last ride of the Pony Express

There was a time when you could send a horse rider with a letter from Manhattan to San Francisco for just $5 in 10 days. This is the Express story
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The last ride of the Pony Express

The Pony Express was a mail service that operated 18 months from 1860 to 1861 in the USA. It ran nearly 1,900 miles (3,000km) between St Joseph Missouri and Sacramento California. Riders carried letters and lightweight parcels under a federal mail contract for a promised ten day delivery.

Two private companies, the Central Overland California and Pike’s Peak Express Co. founded the service. William H. Russell, Alexander Majors and William B. Waddell financed the venture. To provide the service, they built 190 relay stations and recruited some 100 young riders who changed horses every 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24km).

This article explores the origins of the Pony Express, the historical backdrop of pre-Civil War and pre-Wild West America, its founding and operations, prices in today’s money, its legendary riders, and the factors that led to its early closure.

6What it was the Pony Express

The Pony Express was a high speed mail service across the North American continent. It began service on April, 3rd 1860 and ended on October, 24th 1861. The route covered roughly 1,900 miles (3,000km) from St Joseph Missouri to Sacramento California.

Mail traveled in leather saddlebags called “mochila” carried by riders on fast horses. Each saddlebag had 4 locked compartments for quick exchange. Relay stations, spaced 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24km) apart, housed fresh horses and basic supplies.

The service offered delivery in about 10 days, requiring a sustained speed of 7.9 miles per hour (12.7 km/h). That is roughly the pace of a strong trot. Not bad, considering the terrain, weather and the logistics of changing horses every 10 to 15 miles. It was nearly twice as fast as traditional stagecoach routes.

Pony Express
Advertisements of the Pony Express. The one on the left promotes the Express Office at 84 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, New York. In 1860, you could send a message from New York City to California for five dollars per half ounce. The envelope traveled by train to St Joseph, Missouri, where a Pony Express rider placed it in his saddlebag and began a relay of riders across the frontier to Sacramento. From there, it continued by steamboat to San Francisco, arriving in just ten days.

The initial price for mailing a letter via the Pony Express was set at $5 per half ounce (14g), then reduced to $2.50 and by July 1861, it dropped to $1 in an effort to boost mail volume. The initial price was 250 times the price of ordinary mail, which was $0.02. It was a premium rate, since $5 in 1860 equals $194 (€178) in 2025.

A more realistic approach to converting the rates to current money would be to consider that in 1860 a customer would pay the postage with a $5 Gold Half-Eagle (7.526g of pure gold) or five $1 silver dollars (4.057g of pure silver). At current prices, that amount of metal equals $754 in gold and $130 in silver.

5Background, the pre-Civil War and pre-Wild West situation

According to the historically inaccurate myth created by movies, the Pony Express was the primary means of communication in the Wild West. Riders supposedly traveled from town to town, constantly pursued by Indians and attacked by outlaws. Towns were isolated outposts populated by gunslingers, bandits, NPCs and the sheriff boss.

Beyond these scattered settlements laid the untamed wilderness, portrayed as a realm dominated by hostile tribes who killed any paleskin daring to enter their domain. Then, the 7th cavalry showed up and massacred thousand of Indian chasers in just one round.

Pony Express
An allegedly original promotional poster for the Pony Express. The sample is unsigned and undated.

The real situation in the USA, in April of 1860, was pre-civil war (April 12, 1861, 4:30am EST – April 9, 1865) and pre-wild west (April 9, 1865, 1:00pm EST – 1900). The country was divided in 33 States and 10 Territories.

*Historical note; on April 9, 1865 at 1:00pm General Lee surrendered and at 1:01pm there was a massive mass migration to the Frontier of armed gunslingers, bored to the bone for the lack of action and warmongering because “a day without blood is like a day without sunshine”.

“Territories” were regions west of the Mississippi River, with few populations of European origin or without political organization under U.S. government control; Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Indian, Minnesota, Colorado and Nevada. Parts of the Dakotas and the Northern plains remained unorganized (future Montana, Idaho, Wyoming).

The frontier, rather than being a literal dividing line on the map, was a legal term used by the government to describe regions west of the Mississippi River, viewed as zones of expansion.

The Wild West wasn’t yet the gunslinging saloon-filled landscape Towns were sparse settlements, many little more than outposts or mining camps.

Native American tribes still controlled vast areas, especially across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Military forts and trading posts served as the main hubs of activity, not bustling towns filled with outlaws, sheriffs and shootouts.

4How the Pony Express was created

The founders, 3 entrepreneurs, formed Russell, Majors & Waddell, a freighting firm that launched the Pony Express in 1860 to secure a federal mail contract worth 50,000 dollars per year.

They believed rapid communication between Washington DC and California would boost western settlement, commerce and cohesion. California had joined the Union in 1850 as a free state but remained isolated by distance and terrain.

Pony Express
Header from the July 1959 issue of “The Pony Express – Stories of Pioneers and Old Trails”, a monthly magazine edited by Herb S. Hamlin and published by the Pony Express and Pioneer Trails Association in Sonora, California, between 1959 and 19.

News from Washington DC took weeks to arrive by ship or stagecoach. These delays hindered military orders, federal governance and commercial decisions.

The founders bid for the mail contract in late 1859. They proposed a relay system of horseback riders and stations stretching from Missouri, the eastern terminus, to California, crossing through unorganized territories along the way.

Congress awarded the contract in March 1860. Investors and local backers funded station construction, horse purchases and staffing.

3Operative of the Pony Express

The Pony Express route traversed 3 states and 4 territories. It began at St Joseph on the Missouri River. It crossed northern Kansas along the Platte River. It went through Nebraska Territory into Wyoming Territory near South Pass. It continued through Utah Territory the Great Salt Lake Desert and Nevada Territory. It ended in Sacramento California.

Pony Express routes passed through remote relay stations every 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24km), not Wild Weast towns. The company adapted existing stagecoach waypoints to reduce costs. Stations varied from simple log cabins to adobe structures. Water sources, rivers, springs and wells determined station placement.

Pony Express
A rider of the Pony Express crossing Indian territory always with a war party on his heels.

Station keepers stocked 2 to 4 fresh horses, provided meals, blacksmith services and basic shelter. Home stations every 50 miles (80km) offered lodging and horse changes.

Riders covered 70-80 miles (110-130km) per shift before taking a break for sleep. They rode at a steady pace uphill and a gallop on flat ground. Outposts relied on supply convoys transported by wagons or mules.

Pony Express riders faced Indian attacks, outlaws, wildlife and severe weather extremes, that ranged from summer heat in the plains to winter blizzards in Sierra Nevada.

Attacks occurred particularly during the Paiute War in Nevada (May through August 1860). Riders of the Pony Express were directly targeted, 7 express stations were assaulted, 16 employees were killed and approximately 150 horses were either stolen or driven off.

Pony Express
The Patee House at 1202 Penn Street, St. Joseph, Missouri 64503, housed the Pony Express headquarters, which officially opened on April 3, 1860, on its first floor. That year, it served as the headquarters for the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Company, the firm that operated the Pony Express. Riders stayed there before embarking on their westward journeys. The original building, still preserved, now operates as a museum.

In June 1860 station staff at Black Buttes Station (located in current Wyoming, not Washington state) confronted a band of Cheyenne warriors. They held off an attack with rifles until reinforcements arrived.

Working at the stations, especially when an employee was alone and surrounded by miles of isolation, became one of the most dangerous assignments in the entire operation.

Outlaws, also known as road agents, ambushed riders, set up roadblocks and stole mail along the route. Despite the risks, only one mail delivery was ever lost.

2Famous Pony Express riders

Records list more than 80 riders by name. Most were teenagers selected for light weight and courage. Riders signed oaths to abstain from liquor, fighting and profanity. They carried 6 to 10 pounds (3 – 4.5kg) of mail and personal gear.

The Pony Express advertised job opportunities in newspapers and promotional materials around 1859–1860 with the legendary phrase;

Wanted: young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.

Johnny Fry (1840-1863 KIA during the Civil War fighting for the Union) was the first westbound Pony Express rider, who departed from St. Joseph, Missouri on April 3, 1860. The whole inauguration was a spectacle. A cannon fired, crowds cheered and Fry dashed off with a mail pouch containing 49 letters, five telegrams and some papers.

William Fredrick “Pony Bob” Haslam (1840 London, England – 1912), one of the most legendary riders of the Pony Express, set a distance record of 380 miles (611km) in under 40 hours, the longest ride in company history. The average speed was 9.5mph (15.27km/h). He used 17 horses and 1 mule. He undertook the rides during active Indian attacks at the height of the Paiute War and in severe weather conditions.

In July 1860 Pony Bob Haslam’s horse was shot by outlaws near Carson City. He mounted a fresh horse and completed his run without losing mail.

Pony Express
Two photographs of real Pony Express riders. On the right, world-famous William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. On the left, lesser-known Frank E. Webner, shown in an 1861 image preserved by the U.S. National Archives & Records Administration. Buffalo Bill’s real appearance is one of those instances where reality surpasses fiction.

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846 – 1917) worked briefly as a Pony Express rider and became one of the most famous frontiersmen of the Wild West era. He claimed to have ridden between Atchison, Kansas and Carson City, Nevada, although company records do not confirm a full year of service.

Cody’s biography may be heavily fabricated or exaggerated, as it places him at the heart of nearly every major episode of the American frontier; the Pony Express, the Gold Rush, railroad expansion, cattle herding on the Great Plains and military service during the Civil War as a scout and rider with the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment “Jennison’s Jayhawkers”. After the war, he served under General Philip Sheridan as an Army scout and later founded his own circus (1883 – 1916).

Charley Clarke survived multiple ambushes during his tenure on the frontier. His diary recounts an attack by Cheyenne warriors near Fort Laramie, during which he dug a makeshift trench to protect the horses and mail.

“Snowshoe” Thompson made winter runs over the Sierra Nevada. He wrote letters to California parents about sleeping on frozen ground and melting snow for water. He built rudimentary snowshoes from local pine and rawhide.

1The last ride of the Pony Express

On October 24 1861 the Pony Express dispatched its final mail. The delivery was routine and unceremonious, carried out without awareness that just two days later, on October 26, the Express would announce the cessation of all operations.

The last ride coincided with the completion of the first transcontinental telegraph line, constructed in only 4 months to connect the American frontier from Nebraska to California. Telegraph operators could transmit messages coast to coast in under a minute, at a cost of less than $1 per word.

This technological breakthrough rendered the horse relay system obsolete. By the following morning, newspapers in Salt Lake City and Sacramento were reporting that “the Express had been superseded by the electric wire”.

Pony Express
The Telegraph was the last nail in the coffin of the Pony Express.

The Pony Express lost its federal mail contract immediately. Without the 50,000 dollar annual subsidy operating costs exceeded revenues. Company ledgers showed roughly $500,000 in total receipts against $700,000 in expenses, producing a $200,000 deficit. The company declared bankruptcy in November 1861.

High expenses for horses station construction, rider wages and supplies made the business model unsustainable. Investors shifted capital to Morse code infrastructure. The rapid adoption of the telegraph sealed the fate of overland mail service.

The Pony Express only lasted 18 months but its riders will ride forever

The Pony Express only lasted 18 months but became a myth almost instantly. In popular culture through dime novels, films and television, the Pony Express will last forever, stretching through the Wild West and beyond the Frontier, with riders always pursued by Indians and outlaws.

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 Column II

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