"Not just every book about Cody but every one about the Pony Express recites Cody's Pony Express exploits, even Alexander Majors' memoirs. All, however, are easily recognized as mere quotations, paraphrases, or embellishments of…
"The only official list of Pony Express stations and mileages is in the Postmaster General's Record Book as of March 12, 1861, Records of the Post Office Department, Record Group 28, National Archives…
"The overland road entered Nebraska at the dividing line between Gage and Jefferson counties, one-time land of the Otoes, self-styled 'brothers of the whites.' We kept about two miles north…
"Since American scholarship has virtually enshrined the continent-wide westward movement, it is only natural that must of the speculation concerning the overlanders' motivations has revolved around the so-called 'pioneer instinct'…
"Oregonians during the 1850s believed themselves more 'respectable' than their Pacific Coast neighbors to the south, expressing the feeling in an arrogant anecdote: 'At Pacific Springs, one of the crossroads…
"Though scattered references to easy passage over the Rockies had been appearing in newspapers for the previous decade, it was explorer John C. Frémont who ignited the South Pass enthusiasm…
"These frequently mentioned fears of overland travel derived in large measure from the commonly accepted geographic concept of the so-called 'GreatAmerican Desert,' an area thought to extend westward from approximately…
"William 'Buffalo Bill' Cody claims to have been a Pony Express rider around the Julesburg area, but this is unlikely. In Alexander Major's autobiography (one of the Pony Express's founders),…
"It has been said again and again that the Pony Express ruined Russell, Majors & Waddell. That is not true. It was a failure as a financial asset from the…
"Leavenworth, Kansas, at that time a squatter town on the Delaware Indian Reservation two miles south of the Fort, was chosen [in 1855] as headquarters for the firm [Russell, Majors…