From Six Months to Six Seconds

Original Pony Express route near Dugway, Utah

Please welcome commentator David for this post on the Pony Express...

In 1845 it took six months for correspondence from New York or Washington to reach California. By the time it arrived, it was old news.  When California was admitted to the union in 1850 current communications between Washington and Sacramento became more critical.

On January 7, 1860, after several attempts by California US Senator William Gwin to encourage the federal government to improve mail delivery time, a private consortium established The Central Overland California and Pikes Peek Express Company, better known as the Pony Express. Its expressed goal was to transport communications from St Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in ten days. They also hoped to garner other commercial contracts from the army and private companies. 

The Overland company used existing stage and freight routes in the east but needed to establish new weigh stations in the west. The company purchased 400 to 500 mustangs, hired 200 men to manage the stations, and 80 riders. The riders were mostly single and many had no family because the route was fraught with danger. 

Due to the encroachment of settlers into American Indiana territory, the needless slaughter of the buffalo, and the atrocities perpetrated by the gold and silver miners from 1859 to 1860 in Western Nevada, the American Indians were hostile to the pony express riders and station managers. Although the riders and their horses were fast enough to escape the dangers, many station managers lost their lives due to their stations being attacked. 

The more fleet-footed thoroughbred horses worked well in the plains of the east, but the half-broken mustang horses where favored in the west due to their strength and endurance in the arid and mountainous regions of the west. 

The average horse could cover about 10 to 12 miles per day at full speed, so the company set up stations every 10 to 15 miles where the riders could exchange their rides for fresh horses to continue their journey. 

The first rider left St Louis on April 3, 1860. However on October 4, 1861, the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, creating a much faster and cheaper way to send communications from the east to west coast. Nineteen months after the first Pony Express ride, it became obsolete, but the legend of the Express lives on in the stories of the brave riders, horses, and their station managers.

The original route traveled right through Dugway, in central Utah, where we photograph wild horses.  The Oregon Trail Memorial Association and Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association have preserved the trail by constructing monuments, information boards, and preserving one of the weigh stations along the Utah portion of the trail running through Dugway west of Salt Lake City. 

Preserved Pony Express Station near Dugway, Utah

And today the history and legends of the Pony Express live on in the wild horses of the Onaqui.