Quick Facts – Pony Express Ride

A collection of historical tidbits about the Pony Express taken mostly from books, except as otherwise noted. This slider cycles through all of the Quick Facts in random order. I will be adding to these as I read through more sources. You can pause a slide by hovering your mouse over the Fact. To find Quick Facts on a particular topic, click on the appropriate tag in the sidebar. All Facts connected with places on the trail also appear under the appropriate state in the Route Reports section.

Payoff to Floyd
“From the very beginning two principal objects seemed to govern the [House Bond Scandal] hearings: to investigate Secretary Floyd’s acceptances [given to Russell], and to find the abstracted bonds. The firt effort was quite successful, the latter only partially so. . . .

In all the material of the Waddell Collection, there is nothing in the way of direct, conclusive evidence that Floyd received money from Russell, but there is much to arouse suspicion that he did.”

Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 108-109

Mile 753: Fort Laramie Ferry
“Robert Campbell [who built the original fort that became Fort Laramie] had cannily built his picketed stockade in the angle of the two rivers [Laramie and North Platte], so that all who approached from the east must either ford the Laramie or ferry the North Platte. Both projects provided plenty of exercise and some risk. Thos companies who had attained the west bank of the Missouri River at Independence, St. Joseph, Nebraska City, or nearby ferries, and who consequently traveled south of the Platte must now ford the Laramie. And the Laramie was deep, swift-flowing, and ice-cold. Those who ferried the Missouri at Kanesville or Council Bluffs, and remained north of the Platte were now faced with the thankless job of ferrying to the south side only to cross back again just west of the Black Hills, where the river swung too far south for their purpose, and the road left it definitely and forever. The did so up to and including the year 1849. . . .

There was no necessity, as it later proved, for any man to risk (and sometimes lose) his life in ferrying the Platte at Fort Laramie: there was an easy route on the north side. The officers [at Fort Laramie] were suspected of giving out misleading information to induce the emigrants to cross—at first, on account of the profit they could make from selling supplies at exhorbitant prices, and later because they ran a government ferry at five dollars per wagon and had unlimited opportunity to line their pockets.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 161

Lower and Upper California Crossings
“Between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie there were only two divergences that are noteworthy; both pertain to the late period of the trail. Until 1859 all travel on the south bank of the Platte crossed the south fork of the river west of its junction with the north fork. The trail then moved northwest up the ‘peninsula’ between the south and north forks of the river and through Ash Hollow before reaching the valley of the North Platte. It then continued up the south bank to Fort Laramie. The discovery of gold in Colorado let to the Pike’s Peak trail southwestward up the South Platte and another connecting trail northward to the North Platte via Courthouse Rock, for which Julesburg, Colorado, became the new junction point.”

[N.B. The first crossing became known as the Lower California Crossing, and the later crossing near Julesburg was the North California Crossing. The Pony Express used the North California Crossing. Julesburg was the most problematic station at the opening of the Pony Express.]

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 6

Mile 946: Willow Springs
“In time [the emigrants] passed. out of the poison-spring region, went over a snappy ridge, and came to Willow Springs at a distance of twenty-six miles from the ferry. In years of little travelit was the perfect oasis, pure water in a tiny willow grove surrounded by untainted grass. During heavy migrations the grass soon disappeared, and the cattle of the poor or improvident man went unfed at the end of a grueling day’s work. The water never failed.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 205-206

Mile 151: Hanover
“Early in the morning, near the town of Hanover, we had our first glimpse of the Little Blue—a small and gentle river, always to be remembered fondly by the westbound families who, except during Indian uprisings, looked forward with happy anticipation to the days in its rolling valley. Wood, water, and grass were plentiful and, best of all, the headwaters lay to the west so that for almost a week’s journey the caravans camped cozily side by side on its shady bank. Here, if anywhere, the ‘Oh Susannah’ quality of the journey across the plains flourished at its inspiring best. . . .

After a regular stage line with relay stations had been established from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, the Little Blue Valley was considered by crew and passengers to be the cream of the whole trip. . .

The home stations along the Little Blue were especially blessed with farm products—eggs, cream, buter, cheese, and vegetables.Nowhere else along the emigrant road, except at Salt Lake City, were these commodities found. The charm of the home-grown viands was somewhat marred for the curious soul who, in wandering about behind the house, saw the chickens roosting for the night on the butchered pig destined to be his morning pork-chops. But hunger was a potent sauce. No doubt he ate the chops and washed them down with coffee, abundant and hot—the unchallenged beverage of the plains.”

[N.B. The Hollenberg Station site is near Hanover, the base of the Little Blue Valley. The Trail follows the Little Blue until near Ayr, NE (Mile 284)]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 65-68

Mile 957: Greasewood Creek
“Greasewood Creek was a welcome sight, a rapid ten-foot stream, midway of the twenty-mile stretch, where the oxen sunk their muzzles deep and drank as they crossed. After a slow five miles more the alkali lakes came into view—paper-flat deposits of a pure fiery-white soda that ate the soles from the shoes of the luckless herder who must go among them after cattle. The biggest one was called Saleratus Lake. here the cooks replenished their supply of cooking soda and sometimes encountered wagons from the Mormon colony at Salt Lake shoveling it up for home consumption.”

[N.B. This area is now near Steamboat Lake, off to the right of the Pony Express Bikepacking Route at Mile 964. More info about Saleratus Lakes is here.]

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 206

Mile 753: Fort Laramie
“Recorded history of the section immediately west of Scott’s Bluff begins about the year 1818 when Jaques La Ramie, a French Canadian, built a trapper’s cabin near the junction of the North Platte and the Laramie River. He was trapping in the vicinity of Laramie Mountains when the erection of the tiny dwelling established him as the first permanent resident of the section. Four years later the Indians clinched his claim to permanence by leaving his bones to bleach on the headwaters of the river that bears his name. . . .

[In 1834, Robert Campbell and William Sublette stopped to trade at the Laramie River on their way to the rendezvous at Green River.] At Laramie River, the trading was excellent. Sublette left Campbell to hold down the situation and hurried on. Campbell, getting help, built a small trading post consisting of a high stockade of pickets and a. few tiny huts inside. . . .he named the place Fort William, after his partner; but in two years, it evolved into what history knows as Old Fort Laramie. . . .

In 1835 . . .Fort William passed into the hands [of the American Fur Company] and was rechristened Fort John after John B. Sarpy, an officer in the company. . . .In 1836 the American Fur Company deserted the the stockade of Fort John and built a better one a few hundred yards up Laramie River on a small plateau. The name went with it but ‘Fort John on the Laramie’ was soon corrupted to the simple ‘Fort Laramie’ that has remained in use ever since. It was of adobe, copying those forts farther south that had been built with Mexican labor. . . .

By the year 1845 the fur traders dealt mostly in buffalo robes, beaver having passed gradually from its position of importance, and although the other forts did a brisk business, the preeminence and prestige of Fort Laramie was unquestioned. [Francis] Parkman wrote of the American Fur Company at Fort Laramie that they, ‘well-nigh monopolize the Indian trade of this whole region. Here the officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of the United States has little force; for when we were there, the extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the eastward.’ . . .

The lack of governmental protection mentioned by Parkman was felt so keenly that in the summer of ’49 the United States purchased Fort Laramie and garrisoned it for the avowed purpose of giving advice, protection, and the opportunity of buying supplies to the emigrants. It had a monthly mail service, and the marching thousands moved perceptibly faster the last few miles, hoping for a letter from home. Comparatively few were received, for they were apt to be longer en route that the would-be recipients; but the myriads of letters sent eastward fared better, and, if the addressee stayed long enough in one place, they arrived in the fullness of time.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 151-156

Road Over The Sierras
There is likely no more detailed and graphic description of the devastated and hazardous conditions existing along this main immigrant thoroughfare than that written by J. Ross Browne, who, afoot, negotiated the entire trail to Carson City, over the very route taken by Upson, only a few days after the latter’s epic ride.

“The road from Placerville to Strawberry Flat is for the most part graded, and no doubt is a very good road in summer; but it would be a violation of conscience to recommend it in the month of April,” Brown noted. “In many places it seemed absolutely impracticable for wheeled vehicles . . . for the road was literally lined with broken-down stages, wagons, and carts, presenting every variety of aspect, from the general smash-up to the ordinary capsize. Wheels had taken rectangular cuts to the bottom; broken tongues projected from the mud; loads of dry goods and whiskey-barrels lay wallowing in the general wreck of matter … whole trains of pack mules struggled frantically to make the transit from one dry point to another; burros . . . frequently were buried up to the neck … Now and then an enterprising mule would emerge from the mud, and, by attempting to keep the edge of the road, lose his foothold, and go rolling to the bottom 9f the canyon, pack and all.”

Roy S. Bloss, Pony Express—The Great Gamble, 48

Indian Difficulties in the mid-1860s
“Overland staging had met some Indian difficulties previously, but not until the sixties did these become chronic. The isolated depredations of the fifties were but preliminaries of the general uprisings of the middle sixties.”

LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 242

Little Blue Valley
“For years Marysville, Kansas, marked the end of the truly settled country; but the Little Blue Valley, so, charming and so fertile, sheltered a sort of border zone of ranches lying beyond the pale of civilization. It began to be inhabited in the fifties and became more populous as the staging industry formed a life line to hold it to Missouri, but it paid a dreadful price in ‘64 when the Indians rose against the white settlers in one terrific onslaught, hoping to drive them out forever.”

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner,p. 68

Emigrant Characteristics
Most of the emigrants shared certain characteristics as a group: they were men and women who had already made one or more moves before in a restless search for better lands. They were children of parents who themselves had moved to new lands. If ever a people could be said to have been “prepared” for the adventure of the Overland Trail, it would have to be these men and women. They possessed the assortment of skills needed to make the journey and start again. They had owned land before, had cleared land before, and were prepared to clear and own land again. And they were young. Most of the population that moved across half the continent were between sixteen and thirty-five years of age.

Lillian Schlissel, Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey, p. 27-28

1960 Anniversary
Americans love anniversaries, and as 1960 approached, the country rediscovered the legacy of the Pony Express. A century made it possible for a whole new level of enthusiasm. By the time the centennial was planned, there was no one alive who had been there, and the celebrants were relying on memories and a very odd collection of books. Previous celebrations to honor the memory of the Pony Express—1935 was the seventy-fifth birthday—had been odd affairs. In 1954, a group of riders at the behest of the National Junior Chamber of Commerce reenacted the days of the Pony Express by racing day and night from Ogden, Utah, to Colorado Springs, nowhere near the actual route.

As the centennial approached, Waddell F. Smith, grandson of William Bradford Waddell, and the greatest professional Pony Express promoter of modern times, made himself known. Smith operated the Russell, Majors & Waddell Pony Express Foundation and Pony Express History and Art Gallery out of his home in San Rafael, California. In 1960, he produced The Story of the Pony Express: Official 1960 Centennial Edition. He called himself the editor, but the book is none other than Glenn Danford Bradley’s little tome reissued- and annotated-with an index by Smith. . . .

The actual observation of the centennial was as comic as the debate in California. One of the reriders staging the cross-country mail run accidentally shot another. The low point occurred when the reriders were unable to bring the mail overland on time and their tired horses had to be put on a truck. When they finally showed up in Old Sac, the mail pouch had been accidentally left behind.

Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 211, 213

The Buffalo Horse
The Indians had horses for all purposes. The buffalo horse was merely a trained cow pony; he bore a special mark or nick in his ear to distinguish him. He had to be alert, intelligent, willing to follow the game and press close to the side of the running animal, yet able to detect its intention and swerve from it so as not to become entangled, and all with no more guidance than the Indian exerted by pressure of his knees. The war horse and the buffalo horse were renowned for their speed, intelligence, and endurance. They were prize possessions and were valued above all else.

Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 61

Emigrants' Daily Menu
“Charles M. Tuttle describes the daily menu of a typical emigrant: ‘for breakfast, coffee, bacon, dry or pilot bread; for dinner, coffee, cold beans, bacon or buffalo meat; for supper, tea, boiled rice., and dried beef or codfish.’ With this Spartan fare, he says, ‘Out appetites are good, our digestive organs strong, our sleep sweet.'”

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 48

The Pony Express Was Not an End in Itself
“The Pony Express was not an end in itself, but a means to an end. There had been previous suggestions for the establishment of a fast overland express, and an attempt was made inn Congress in 1855 to provide such a service, but these efforts did not succeed. With the establishment of the overland stage lines a rivalry had arisen between Butterfield and the ‘Central’ routes . . .

During the winter of 1859-60, while Mr. William H. Russell was in Washington, he discussed the overland mail question with Senator Gwin of California. The Senator contended that it was necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of the Central route before he would be able to get from Congress a subsidy to reimburse the firm for the undertaking. The plan appealed to Russell and he agreed to put through the enterprise.”

LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849–1869, p. 164-169

Julesburg
“In its palmiest days, during overland staging and freighting, old Julesburg had, all told, not to exceed a dozen buildings, including station, telegraph office, store, blacksmith shop, warehouse, stable, and a billiard saloon. At the latter place there was dispensed at all hours of the day and night the vilest of liquor at ‘two bits’ a glass. Being a ‘home’ station and the end of a division, also a junction on the stage line, and having a telegraph office in the southeast corner of the station, naturally made it, in the early ’60’s, one of the most important points on the great overland route. It was also the east end of the Denver division, about 200 miles in length. . . .

“Where [Jules] kept this station the crossing of the South Platte was widely known as ‘Julesburg.’ The place was also known by many freighters on the plains as “Upper California Crossing.” Here there were frequent troubles which first began in the spring of 1859. Being a sort of rendezvous for gamblers, for some time it was regarded as the toughest town between the Missouri river and the mountains. After Holladay came into possession of the great stage line, knowing the bad name that had for some time been attached to Julesburg, he subsequently gave the place the somewhat high-sounding name of Overland City.”

Root and Connelley, The Overland Stage to California, p. 213-215

Camels in the West
“On March 3, 1855, Congress appropriated $30,000, which was placed at the disposal of the Secretary of War for the purpose of introducing camels into the United States for the use of the army in transportation. Jefferson Davis took the keenest interest in the experiment, directing it personally. He ordered Major Henry C. Wayne of the army to proceed to the Levant and purchase a shipload of camels. On February 11, 1856, Major Wayne wrote from Smyrna that he had purchased the camels, which were then on board the Supply, in command of Lieutenant D. D. Porter of the navy. The camels were landed at Indianola, Texas, and sent inland by way of Victoria and San Antonio to a camp known as Camp Verde, near the Bandera Pass. On February 10, 1857, another shipload arrived, bringing the number of camels to about seventy-five.

When Jefferson Davis left the War Department in 1857 the experiment passed into the hands of men who were less interested in it than he. The camels were used in short expeditions in western Texas, and they made at least one trip to California, where some of them remained. Though they were praised for their ability to travel over the dry, rough country of the Southwest, to go without water, and to carry heavy burdens, the experiment ended in failure and the final disappearance of the animals. Jefferson Davis justified the experiment at national expense by stating that he had introduced the camels for use in the army anywhere and everywhere; but the fact remains that they were used only in the Great Plains region. Had the experiment succeeded, it would have been of most benefit to the South: it would have tied the Far West to the South until the railroads were completed. The bringing of the camels to the United States appears to later generations as a bit of national humor. But when we bear in mind the opinion then held by practically every informed person regarding the conditions in the Great Plains, the experiment becomes intelligible and reasonable, an effort to solve temporarily the problem of transportation across the Great American Desert.”

Walter Prescott Webb, The Great Plains, p. 199-200

Sage Brush Camp Fire
“When a party camps, the first thing to be done is to cut sage-brush; and in a few minutes there is an opulent pile of it ready for use. A hole a foot wide, two feet deep, and two feet long, is dug, and sage-brush chopped up and burned in it till it is full to the brim with glowing coals. Then the cooking begins, and there is no smoke, and consequently no swearing. Such a fire will keep all night, with very little replenishing; and it makes a very sociable camp-fire, and one around which the most impossible reminiscences sound plausible, instructive, and profoundly entertaining.”

Mark Twain, Roughing It, p. 34

Sioux Moccasins
The valley of the North Platte had narrowed, with bluffs that several times came to the water’s edge and forced them, double-teaming, over hard climbs before they could get back to level going. Feed was better and the buffalo fatter, but they were troubled to come upon recent Indian kills and to see the tracks of moccasins; Sioux from the fact that they were pointed and shaped to fit right and left foot.

Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, p 134

First Appropriation for Overland Mail to California
“Bills authorizing an overland mail were introduced in Congress in 1855 and 1856, but they did not pass. On March 3, 1857, the Post Office Appropriations Bill, which bore an amendment authorizing an overland mail to California, became law. It provided $300,000 for a semimonthly service, or $450,000 for a weekly service, or $600,000 for a semi-weekly service.”

Settle and Settle, Empire on Wheels, p. 68

Waiting at Ham's Fork
“We passed the Rattlesnake Hills [or Granite Mountains] and Sweetwater Mountains and crossed the Rookies at South Pass.

We drove on the west slope of the mountains till we reached Dry Sandy Creek. Here we had poor water and heavy, sandy roads, and our cattle were getting weak from the long journey. It was slow traveling down this stream, and we would have to double our teams to get through the sandy streaks.

We went from here on down Big Sandy Creek, and across to Green River near where Granger now is.

We had quite a hard time in crossing this stream.

Here we found a sort of trading post, and they had farmed a little. Rennick found some potatoes here and bought some. They were the first vegetables we had had since leaving Leavenworth, and it was a treat to us all.

Here we laid over, as we were in no hurry now. Colonel Van Vliet had gone into Salt Lake City, and Brigham Young refused to allow the soldiers and their supply trains to enter the city. The Mormons had an armed force stationed along the road out, nearly to old Fort Bridger, one hundred miles from Salt Lake City, and they were building fortifications to keep the government trains out. There were twenty-five hundred armed Mormons stationed along this road.

Colonel Van Vliet came back, and when he met the first train, ordered them to turn back to Ham’s Fork and stop till further orders. He left part of his escort with them, exchanged part of his mules, and rode back to Fort Laramie as fast as he could, changing mules at each train and ordering each train to stop at Ham’s Fork.

We were twenty-six miles from the Fork when he met us.

We rested here a while, then drove in and camped near the other trains. There were four trains ahead of us.

There was a fine camping place with plenty of good water and fine grass for our cattle.

Other trains kept coming in every day or two.”

William Clark, "A Trip Across the Plains in 1857," Iowa Journal of History and Politics, 20 (1922), p. 192

Post Rider Description
One job description for the position ordered that “in the selection of riders you must always take persons of integrity, sound health, firmness, perseverance and high ambition, and pride of character. Among these a preference is due to young men, the less the size the better.” One such was James S. Totten, fourteen, who took the job when General David Sutton, his grandfather and guardian, died and left him penniless. The plucky, jockey-weight boy supported himself on his weekly route’s eight-dollar monthly salary and later become a prominent local politician.

Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 55

Sod House
Mud Springs was the next home station on the line-a small house made of sod bricks with a wooden roof; the rider could sleep in a lean-to on the side, provided there were no guests from the stagecoach that shared the stop. Sod was an ecologically correct building material before there was such a thing: thick bales of grass and dirt, cut from the prairie, that provided good insulation created from a renewable resource. The grass had to have fairly thick and deep roots, or the dirt would simply fall away; preferred varieties included buffalo grass, little blue stem, wire grass, prairie cord grass, Indian grass, and wheat grass.

Sod bricks, roughly a foot wide, three feet deep, and four inches high were laid grass down and built up like Legos, alternating the courses for strength; a wall would be two or more feet thick, providing natural insulation against the cold and heat. Doors and windows were framed out with timber pegged into the sod bricks. They were rarely higher than one story. Cedar was the wood of choice for the roof poles and logs, which were then covered with a thinner layer of sod.

The interior could be smoothed over with a sandbased plaster; shelves were added on supports driven into the wall. In most cases the sod houses were seen as temporary structures, useful while you were establishing your farm or business. Once you were doing well enough to afford sawn lumber, you relegated the sod structure to some other use and built a larger house.

Jim DeFelice, West Like Lightning, p. 95

Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express
It is highly unlikely that the Pony Express would be so well remembered had not Buffalo Bill so glamorized it; in common opinion Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express are indissolubly linked.

-DON RUSSELL, THE LIVES AND LEGENDS OF BUFFALO BILL, 1960

Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 161

Mormons and the Courts
“It was in the judicial rather than the political field, however, that non-Mormons felt most keenly the dictatorial authority of the church. . . .At first the Mormons, believing that Gentile courts did not dispense justice, followed the advice of their leaders to use their own ecclesiastical tribunals in settlement of their mutual difficulties. Then the influx of Gentiles brought the Saints into legal entanglements that could be resolved only in territorial courts, other devices were employed to guard the interests of Church members. The legislature, for instance, by enactment in 1852 permitted anyone, with or without legal training, to serve as an attorney in court; two years later a more extensive act declared that only territorial laws, and those of Congress ‘when applicable,’ could be ‘read, argued, cited or adopted as precedent in any trial,’ Thus the Mormons tried to escape all laws, including English common law, that might serve to prejudice their search for autonomy. . . .

Of all the judicial defenses raised by the Church to protect itself, none caused so much trouble as the probate courts. In February 1852 the legislature gave these tribunals such exceptional powers that they came to have jurisdiction in criminal and civil cases. . . .In reply, many Gentiles insisted that thte extravagant augmentation of the probate courts’ authority was obvious proof of the Mormons’ ultimate intention to establish a community effectively independent of all federal control. W. W. Drummond, a federal judge who more than any other man brought about the Mormon War of 1857-58 . . . used this strange legal situation as one of his arguments for the need of an expedition against the Latter-day Saints.”

Norman F. Furniss, The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859, p. 16-18

Trailside Graves
“A grave placed below on a small circular rising ground at a bend of Echo Canon struck me perhaps more: wistfully one reads these records of the dead; one may people the castles on the cliffs with aerial warriors from faery land, but human sympathies, and something more than idle curiosities, group around these lonely tombs. Here, for instance, is one but a week old, that tells us the emigrant train was just so far ahead of us. The name is Cadoret, a Frenchman, I suppose; my companion reads with interest the name of his countryman, and tells me it is a Breton name; we both wonder why he joined the Mormons, and came hither.

“Side by side is another grave: read that slab; “aged 76 :” were there no graves in Egypt, that the old man came out to perish in the wilderness? Was it zeal for a faith adopted late in life, or the intenser thirst for-the gold of California, that brought him to the mouth of Echo Canon, and to the side of the rapid Weber, and within a day’s walk of the valley in the mountains?

“Look at this one more: Bewick might have chosen it as the subject of a vignette; the slab of wood is neatly carved, and tells us a woman was buried here; her place of birth, her age, and whose wife she was, we can read; but the ground was soft and the grave shallow, and the wolves have torn up the body—perhaps before the first night’s dew settled on the tombstone, or the cheek of the mourner was dry. But we have stayed too long; the waggons are almost out of sight, and the Frenchman, satiated with the beauty of the red cliffs, is eager to drive on the straggling invalids of our herd.”

William Chandless, Chandless, W. (1857). A Visit to Salt Lake, p. 123-124

Chorpenning's Contribution to California Overland Mail
“In 1850 the Post Office Department issued the first contracts for overland mail service between Independence, Missouri, and Salt Lake City, Utah. The following year, it extended postal delivery west to Sacramento, California. From 1851 to 1860 George W. Chorpenning, Jr., an energetic Pennsylvania entrepreneur, controlled the Utah-California segment of the overland route. For nine years, he surmounted successive disasters, only to fall prey to congressional squabbles, a skinflint postmaster general, the machinations of the Pony Express, and his own cupidity or inadequacy. Benignly ignored by Congress and the post office, Chorpenning nonetheless fulfilled his contracts and demonstrated the efficiency of a direct central overland route to and from California. Despite his ultimate failure, Chorpenning blazed a trail for the Pony Express, the Union Telegraph, and the Overland Stage Company . . .

“Chorpenning’s efforts to establish a central overland mail service have generally been discounted as endeavors “of a ruder type,” when compared with the Pony Express. Although he established the first scheduled mail service over what later became the preferred route for the telegraph, Overland Stage, and railroad, that service rarely met the terms of his contract. Nor was he the perpetually questing frontiersman that he later projected to Congress. Subcontractors conducted the actual operation of the mail line, while Chorpenning spent most of his time as a comfortable habitue of Washington, D.C.

“Whether the loss of his contract in 1860 was the result of the machinations of ruthless competitors, or simply a classic case of undercapitalization, Chorpenning made a genuine contribution to opening transcontinental communication. He instituted, and for nine years maintained, regular mail delivery between California and Salt Lake City; he introduced wheeled transportation to the western section of the overland mail; and he reoriented the Utah-California route to a shorter, safer, and more dependable trace. Like many other entrepreneurs, Chorpenning saw opportunity on the Far Western frontier and was willing to gamble. His ultimate failure appears as yet another example of an ambitious man’s reach exceeding his grasp.”

John M. Townley, "Stalking Horse for the Pony Express: The Chorpenning Mail Contracts between California and Utah, 1851-1860", Arizona and the West, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Autumn, 1982), p. 229-252

Prairillon
“As night had closed in, we found some difficulty in choosing a camping-place: at length we pitched upon a prairillon under the lee of a hill, where we had bunch-grass and fuel, but no water. The wind blew sternly through the livelong night, and those who suffered from cramps in cold feet had little to do with the ‘sweet restorer, balmy sleep.'”

[Note: Prairillon: Small prairie, obsolete]

Richard Burton, The City of Saints, p. 481

Telegraph Meets at Fort Bridger
Crews were spread out along the entire route of the telegraph, stringing wire simultaneously in several places. The wires were finally joined at Fort Bridger in what was then Utah on October 24, 1861.

Christopher Corbett, Orphans Preferred, p. 120

Importance of the Pony Express
One of the principal patrons of the service was the English government, the official communications of which were, as a rule, forwarded by this route. A report of the operations of the English squadron in China waters required $135 to cover the pony-express charges. The most important service rendered by it was the carrying of communications between Washington and the government officers and Union men on the coast. To it may be attributed the information that enabled them to forestall the plans of the Southern faction to carry California out of the Union. The events then taking place, foreshadowing our Civil War, were of overwhelming interest, and for this reason public attention was directed more to the service than would have been the case under ordinary circumstances.

W.F. Bailey, "The Pony Express," Century Magazine, 41 (Oct. 1898), p. 890

Oxen Pulled Freight Wagons
“[O]xen were strong, inexpensive, and—as one early Santa Fe trader discovered in 1851—served three useful purposes: ‘1st, drawing wagons; the Indians weill not steal them as they would horses and mules; and 3rdly, in case of necessity part of the oxen will answer for provisions.'”

Dan Rottenberg, Death of a Gunfighter, p. 65

Mile 120: Guittard's Station
“Going east passengers seldom passed by the house of this Frenchman [Guittard]. He kept one of the best ranches on the whole line and he was known along the overland from Atchison to California by stage passengers and freighters as well as the ‘Delmonico’ is in New York. His was the favorite stopping place for all passengers on the overland, and thousands of freighters and pilgrims hardly ever passed, going east or west without sitting down to the hospitable table that made this ranch so famous. . . .

[quoting from Root and Connelly, Stagecoaching to California]

“In his City of the Saints, Burton, praises very few of the eating places (in 1860), but says that here ‘the house and kitchen were clean, the fences neat; the ham and eggs, the hot rolls and coffee, were fresh and good, and, although drought had killed the salad, we had abundance of peaches and cream, an offering of French to American taste. . . . pp. 27, 28.”

George Root, "Pike's Peak Express Companies," Part III, Kansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 8 (1944) p. 497 (and note 252)

Fort Laramie Mail
“A Fort Laramie postmarked letter in existence today is worth a small fortune to collectors. This was the last chance to mail anything this side of California without detouring to Salt Lake City, and the emigrants made the most of it, often swimming the North Platte for the privilege. The post office was not a separate building; it was part of the sutler’s store. . . . Woodson, Magraw, and Hockaday, the regular mail carriers from Salt Lake City to the Missouri, took turns at attempting to run monthly mails, though frequently interrupted by weather and Indians. Sometimes emigrant mail was accepted for delivery by army messengers. . . .

Although the mail normally ran in just two directions, east and west along the Platte, Fort Laramie also served briefly as the mail contact point for two distant gold rush communities, south and north. In 1858-1859, before more direct routes were established, mail from the Denver area was routed to the states through Fort Laramie; and for a few years beginning in 1876 Fort Laramie was a major stage and mail route on the Cheyenne-Deadwood Trail to the Black Hills of South Dakota.”

Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, p. 515

Workshop Wagon
“A full-fledged t r a i n for crossing t h e p l a i n s was made up of twenty-five t o twenty-six wagons, or as sometimes stated twenty-five wagons and one mess. At times there was also a reserve mess wagon. There might be one or more provision wagons, an office wagon, and a workshop wagon. The last named unit was stocked with coils of rope, extra tires, jacks, pulleys, wheels, spokes, iron bars, and very often a small forge. A twenty-five wagon train was called a “bull outfit”. A train of less than this number of wagons was simply an ‘outfit.'”

Floyd Bresee, Overland Freighting in the Platte Valley 1850–1870, p. 29

Idea of a Pony Express
The idea behind the Pony Express, soon affectionately abbreviated to “the Pony,” was not new, even in America. Postmasters general John McLean and Amos Kendall had sent horsemen racing day and night to speed market information between certain cities for several times the price of normal postage. These express services had indeed cut delivery times—between New York City and New Orleans, say, to half the fourteen days required by stagecoaches—but they were soon replaced in the East by the faster, cheaper railroads.

Winifred Gallagher, How the Post Office Created America, p. 129

Fort Bridger and the Mormons
“The beautiful and fertile valley of Blacks Fork, with Fort Bridger standing squat and picturesque in its midst, was well known to the Mormons. The first small Mormon advance party passed near it in 1847 when, by reason of bloody clashes with their gentile neighbors in the States, they left the Missouri River for an unknown haven near the Great Salt Lake. They were closely followed by the great Mormon migratory caravan, who took careful note of the trading post just east of the passage leading through the Wasach Range. It must be confessed that they also took note of the histrionic Mr. Bridger and recorded him tersely as a man who did not tell the truth.

There he was, however, firmly ensconced in the best piece of pasture land between Salt Lake City and Horseshoe Station, and so situated that whatever the Mormons required from civilization, whether mail, freight, or converts, must pass within a mile or two of his door. The setup was far from satisfactory to Brigham Young. . . .

Distrust and dissension prevailed between Mormon and gentile, aggravated by lack of definite information and the growing gossip concerning polygamy, then an intrinsic part of the Mormon religious custom. The colonists had once been forced, if they wished to continue its practice, to leave their homes, and they felt that their freedom of action was again threatened. Any gentile settlement near them was unwelcome.

The facts and issues are clouded by the passage of many years, but the two conflicting stories are somewhat as follows: Jim Bridger contended that the Mormon leaders had no particular grievance against him but simply coveted his property; that they sent a group of their ‘avenging angels’ to do him bodily harm; that he barely escaped into the willows and, with the aid of his Indian wife, was able to get away, abandoning everything to the Mormons. The Mormons claimed that Bridger was furnishing guns to the dangerous Utes, with whom they were at war. Both are nice healthy arguments and are not at all incompatible. This happened in 1853. The Mormons took over Fort Bridger . . . [which] became a Mormon outpost.

Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner, p. 248-249