159th Anniversary of the Pony Express

Featured Content April 3, 2019 – Related documents

The Pony Express was a mail delivery service in operation between 1860 and 1861. It reduced the time necessary to send a mail from East to the West to just 10 days. Despite its short existence it continues to live on in American memory. The following are select government documents concerning the Pony Express and the Pony Express National Historic Trail.



Pony express route April 3, 1860 - October 24, 1861; Source: Library of Congress

First transcontinental telegraph

The first transcontinental telegraph (completed October 24, 1861) was a line that connected the existing network in the eastern United States to a small network in California, by means of a link between Omaha, Nebraska and Carson City, Nevada, via Salt Lake City. It was a milestone in electrical engineering and in the formation of the United States of America. It served as the only method of near-instantaneous communication between the east and west coasts during the 1860s. In 1841, it had taken 110 days for the news of the death of President William Henry Harrison to reach Los Angeles.

Pony Express



Pony Express advertisement



Pony Express Postmark, 1860, westbound

The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail using relays of horse-mounted riders that operated from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, between Missouri and California in the United States of America.

Operated by Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, the Pony Express was of great financial importance to the U.S. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days. It became the West's most direct means of east-west communication before the transcontinental telegraph was established (October 24, 1861), and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States.

Despite a heavy subsidy, the Pony Express was not a financial success and went bankrupt in 18 months, when faster telegraph service was established. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pony Express quickly became romanticized and became part of the lore of the American West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance of individual young, hardy riders and fast horses was seen as evidence of rugged American individualism of the frontier times.

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Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes Pony Express
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The Young Riders



DVD cover of the first Season 1 box set

The Young Riders is an American western television series created by Ed Spielman that presents a fictionalized account of a group of young Pony Express riders (some of whom are young versions of legendary figures in Old West history) based at the Sweetwater Station in the Nebraska Territory during the years leading up to the American Civil War. The series premiered on ABC on September 20, 1989 and ran for three seasons until the final episode aired on July 23, 1992.

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