Papers Stealing News Stories
One of the greatest problems of the Bulletin and associated newspapers at this time was how to prevent the less prosperous and less enterprising papers from stealing their costly news dispatches. The…
Pony Express News Delivery
The Bulletin and Union had no sooner put their new system into working order than a further improvement in communication with the East made it more or less obsolete. This was the…
Purpose of Pony Express
In the spring of 1860, W. H. Russell established his Pony Express in order to demonstrate once for all the superiority of the South Pass route.
Kublai Kaan’s Pony Express
[T]he great Kaan had his Pony Ex- press 500 years earlier. Thus Marco wrote in Book ii, Chapter xxvi (Vol. i, pp. 433-437) how from the royal city of Cambalue…
Persian Angareion
While Xerxes was doing thus, he sent a messenger to the Persians, to announce the calamity which had come upon them. Now there is nothing mortal which accomplishes a journey with more speed…
Pony Express Stations
From St. Joseph to Fort Kearny, Fort Bridger to Rush Valley, and from Carson City to Sacramento, most of the stations were located in fairly good country and were reasonably comfortable. All others…
Civil War Interrupted Pony Express Research
The Civil War, still America's most deadly conflict, became the blinding focal point of public attenton, juat as the flet little poniesd had chalked up a year's service freighting the…
Onward The Pony Rushed
Onward, onward, he rushed, dutifully bringing the tidings, glad or sad. Fearlessly, his rider explored the unknown desert, crossed the raging streams and swept through the pathless forest. He shined on mountain tops…
Pony Finances
Exactly what was the monetary worth of the Pony as a stake in this fabulous wager has been debated for years. At the outset, merely to equip the stations along the road…
Pony’s Accomplishments
His [Pony Expresses'] work—that's an interesting point. It may be well to cast the account, to see just what he did do. First, consider his speculating founder. For the optimistic, hopeful…
Daily Stage and Pony Express Goes Federal
On July 1st [1861] the changeover was official. The country's first daily overland stage service commenced from either end of the long route to the west. And the Pony Express, for the…
The Enigma Begins
The enigma begins at St. Joseph. In all the huzzas and hurlyburly that accompanied the send-off, no one apparently thought to record for posterity exactly the place in the city where the grand…
Pony Express Horses
The total bill for putting horseflesh under saddle was in the neighborhood of $87,000. At a $175 average for 500 mounts the company paid what appears to have been a going market price,…
Russell Purchases Hockaday
Through this maelstrom of congressional bickering and administrative ill-will, seemingly only W. H. Russell, the great opportunist, had a clear eye to the future. A month after Postmaster General Holt crippled Hockaday by…
Chorpenning’s Pony Express
George Chorpenning, antedating the Pony Express by a little less than two years, established a one-time run along his new route south of the Humboldt River. When surveying the road in the fall…