Quick Facts

Purpose of the Pony Express

Forty-five years later Alexander Majors said that Russell, Majors & Waddell took over the Express Company to protect its own and Russell’s credit. While this was true, there was far more to it than that. First of all, they had to take it over or write off their claim of $190,269, which they were not disposed to do.  By taking over the bankrupt concern, which would bring them $198,750 in mail pay alone to November 15, 1860, they thought they saw a chance to come out whole. They also held a monopoly on the stage coach, commercial and military freight, passenger, express, and mail business on the Central Route. The possibilities involved in these things were sufficiently great to justify whatever efforts were necessary to realize them.

That the foregoing measures were taken to place them in a position to compete with the Butterfield Overland Mail Company for the great $600,000 mail contract, which would be up for renewal in 1862, is plain. That was the end for which the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company was organized. Encouraged by politics and the continual barrage of complaints against the Overland Mail Company, especially in California, Russell, Majors & Waddell felt they had a good chance of success, which they did have under ordinary circumstances. In the normal course of things, it was inevitable that the principal mail line would run over the Central Route. Nature had made that the shortest and best route, and sectional politics could not long prevent its adoption.

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 Russell he accomplished precisely nothing, except to help push him deeper into the mire of debt and, hence, disrepute, remitting to him only a timeless fame and memory.

As for the telegraph, it’s been said that the brass key followed in the Pony’s train, as he virtually pulled the wire ends together. Truthfully, the honor is not his; the staccato messages would have come anyway. . . .

Well, surely the Pony must be given credit as the forerunner of the Pacific Railroad, so profoundly forecast when Mayor Jeff Thompson slapped the hindquarter of the first impatient steed at St. Joseph. . . . No, Russell’s brief hope was only the predecessor, not the pathfinder, and neither the cause nor procurer, of the iron horse.

What, then, did the fame-ridden charger do? Plainly, he carried the mail. That was his means to the end, and the end was Russell’s gamble.

Whose Idea Was the Pony Express

It is the purpose of this article to discuss one of these questions, with the hope of shedding a little light upon it and of giving credit where credit is due.

That question is with whom the idea originated. The first attempt to answer it appears to have been made by William Lightfoot Visscher in 1908, when he wrote The Pony Express, the first book on that institution. In the fall of 1854, he said, Senator William M. Gwin, United States Senator from California, was riding horseback from San Francisco to the Missouri River, on his way to take up his legislative duties in Washington. On that journey, for a long distance and many days, he had for a traveling companion Benjamin F. Ficklin, general superintendent of the freighting firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Between them they evolved the idea of a Pony Express. . . . That story cannot be true for several reasons, the first and most conclusive of which is that Russell, Majors & Waddell did not exist in the fall of 1854. . . .

Another story of recent vintage, told by Herbert Hamlin, editor of the Pony Express, credits Colonel Frederick A. Bee, president and builder of the Placerville & St. Joseph Overland Telegraph Line, with being the “Father of the Pony Express.” The sole basis for the author’s sweeping assumptions seems to be the mere fact that Colonel Bee and William H. Russell were probably in Washington at the same time during the winter of 1859-60. . . .

Still another story is related by Charles R. Morehead, nephew of Russell’s wife, who was appointed assistant to James Rupe, general agent for Russell, Majors & Waddell, to supervise the wagon trains which were transporting supplies for Johnston’s Army to Utah in 1857. . . “With Mr. Floyd,” said Morehead, “the question of the feasibility of a pony express across the continent was presented by Mr. Russell, and fully discussed. Captain Rupe’s views were called for, and he expressed the opinion that it was entirely practicable at all seasons on this route, all the way to California.” . . . Morehead’s Narrative, written at the request of William E. Connelley, secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, is included in the Appendix to his Doniphan’s Expedition, which was published in 1913. . . .

In 1879, Joseph S. Roberson, who was a member of the Pony Express staff at St. Joseph, wrote a story of its founding and operation. According to his report, “the fertile brains of Wm. H. Russell and B. F. Ficklin conceived the idea of a Pony Express, to be run under the patronage of the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company.” . . .

John Scudder, an employee of Russell, Majors & Waddell, stationed at Salt Lake City in the fall and winter of 1859, told how he and others discussed the possibility of a fast letter-mail from St. Joseph to San Francisco in twelve days. Among the group was A. B. Miller, partner of Russell and Waddell in the firm of Miller, Russell & Company, which operated stores in Salt Lake City and Camp Scott at Bridger’s Fort. . . . Quite a number of communications passed between Mr. Russell and his agent (A. B. Miller) at Salt Lake City, and the upshot of it was that the former [Scudder probably meant Miller] agreed to test the matter by stringing out a lot of horses and riders between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. . . .

It appears the scheme originated with

The Alta California of San Francisco, on March 23, 1860, in a dispatch from its Washington correspondent, tells another story. . . “Mr. Butterfield himself in this city about three months ago. At that time Charles M. Stebbins and his Great Overland Mail chief were in consultation on the subject of a regular Horse Express to California, running from the terminus of the telegraph line on this end to the commencement of the Street line on the other, in ten days, carrying important dispatches and paages at the rate of about $50 per pound, and news dispatches at a high figure. . . .

Alexander Majors said in his book (1893) that Gwin asked him and his partners “to test the practicability of crossing the Sierra Nevadas, as well as the Rocky Mountains with a daily line of comminications.” Whether he meant a daily coach service, which he probably did, or a pony express, is not known. If Gwin suggested or sought a government subsidy to carry out this experiment there is no record of it. . . .

Regardless of who conceived the idea for a Pony Express, William H. Russell was the man with sufficient vision, ability, courage, and capital to organize it. That fact cannot be questioned. Others had dreamed about it, but he alone made it a reality. The “Father of the Pony Express,” therefore, was no other than William H. Russell himself.

First Mention of Orphans

Then in 1945, the Burlington Lines railroad company published a small souvenir booklet, “Westward the Course of Empire,” subtitled “The Story of the Pony Express, Forerunner of the Burlington Zephyrs.” This booklet mentions a preference for orphans. It reproduces the fabled newspaper notice. An expensively produced monograph of only fifty-seven pages, the booklet was illustrated with elaborate linecut drawings. It was written by Gene Morgan, about whom nothing is known. Where he got the orphans information is a mystery. The publisher in Chicago-Lakeside Press, a division of the printing giant J. R. R. Donnelley-has no record of the book. It may possibly date from what is the oldest known and perhaps the first mention of a preference for orphans by the organizers of the Pony Express. That mention appears in the October 1923 issue of Sunset magazine, a popular western periodical founded in 1898 by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which variously published works by Mark Twain, Jack London, Bret Harte, Zane Grey, Dashiell Hammett, and Sinclair Lewis. In an article written by John L. Considine titled “Eleven Days to Saint Joe!” Considine attributes (as did Mabel Loving) the origin of the Pony Express ad to Bolivar Roberts.

Bancroft on the Pony Express and California

News was received every ten days by pony. That coming by the Butterfield route was double the time ; what came by steamship was from three to four weeks old when it arrived. In the spring of 1861 the Apaches on the southern route attacked and delayed the mails. It was the pony to which every one looked for intelligence; men prayed for the safety of the little beast, and trembled lest the service should he discontinued. Telegraphic dispatches from New York were sent to St. Louis, and thence to Fort Kearny, whence the pony brought them to Sacramento, where they were telegraphed to San Francisco. Great was the relief of the people when Hale’s bill for a daily mail was passed, and the service changed from the southern to the central route, as it was early, in the summer. News by the daily mail was eighteen days old at the shortest, but it was regular and consecutive at short intervals, which was far more satisfactory than the former arrangement. After all it was to the flying pony that all eyes and hearts were turned; and to the praise of the St Joseph company be it recorded that they kept up the service, at a loss, until the the telegraph was completed across the continent in October, 1861. Their first object was to exemplify the practicability of a mail, or railroad line, on or about the 41st parallel. After that was demonstrated, they had no further interest in the pony express, except through patriotism.

Historic Examples of Pony Express

The idea of a courier carrying messages on horseback over long distances was old when Columbus pointed the prows of his tiny vessels toward the Wes tern Hemisphere. In the 12th century Genghis Khan, Mongolian conquerer of Northern China and Central Asia, organized a vast, empire-wide network of military communication lines over which relays of fast riding horsemen sped messages to the capital. The idea was not new, even with him, for horses in the West and camels in the East had been employed in travel and communication since time immemorial.

Post roads were common is England and on the Continent long before the Pilgrims exiled themselves in Holland in 1608. At Scrooby, where the band of expatriates originated, William Brewster, like his father before him, was keeper of the inn, and supplied horses for both stage coaches and post riders on the London-York road. Postmen with relays of horses were known in America as early as 1692, when Thomas Neale was authorized to take charge of the colonial postal business. During the Revolution, military expresses rode continually between the various armies in the field and Congress in Philadelphia. As the frontier moved westward, postmen on horseback rode the wilderness trails farther and farther west.

In 1825, David Hale, a New York newspaper editor, used fast horsemen to carry news from various parts of the state, and five years later Richard Haughton, of the New York Journal of Commerce, used them to collect election returns. James Watson Webb, of the New York Courier and Enquirer, in 1832, established a pony express between Washington and New York.

During the War with Mexico, expresses regularly traveled the nine hun· dred miles along the Santa Fe Trail between Fort Leavenworth and Santa Fe, and Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan sent at least one back from Chi· huahua. He also sent another from that city to General Zachary Taylor at Monterey seven hundred miles to the south. In 1848 Francis X. Aubry made the first of his four famous rides from Santa Fe to Independence, Missouri. On the last of these he covered the distance in five days and sixteen hours, using relays of horses. Alexander Majors, who saw him on o.ne of these rides, said those long journeys greatly influenced him and his partners in founding the Pony Express. In 1853, when an important Presidential message reached San Francisco by steamer, the Adams and Wells Fargo Express Companies agreed to make a race of delivering it to Oregon by relays of fast riding horsemen. The Adams Company won the race.

During the Mormon War in Utah, express men carrying reports by General A. S. Johnston regularly rode the twelve hundred miles between Camp Scott and Camp Floyd, and Fort Leavenworth. As previously shown, Morehead and Rupe made the trip in midwinter of 1857-58, and Majors himself rode to Utah and back in the latter year, arriving at Nebraska early in January, 1859. Travel over the Central Route was so common there was not the slightest doubt in Russell’s mind or the minds of his partners that a pony express could be successfully operated the year round. Majors and Waddell never questioned the possibility of that. They did, however, doubt that it would be a money-making enterprise.

The experiment of carrying the mail from the Pacific Coast to Salt Lake City by muleback was made by George Chorpenning with his “Jackass Mail” in 1851-58. Throughout the venture he simply loaded the pouches onto the backs of mules and made the trips without relays. In 1858 he arranged for swift riders, perhaps also mounted upon mules, to carry President Buchanan’s annual message to Congress in as short a time as possible. This was done in midwinter, and the document was delivered in California in seventeen days, eight and one half hours. It should be observed that this feat, which at that time was regarded as amazing, was accomplished at about the time that Morehead and Rupe were bucking the snow on their way to Fort Leavenworth, and more than a year and a half before Colonel Bee went to Washington. Both Russell and his Salt Lake City associates no doubt heard about it.

Pony Express Symbolization

Harper’s may have been read by frontier hearths and even in the occasional outhouse, but the magazine’s real audience was back east. Readers’ lives weren’t generally as dangerous or physically daunting, but they were cutting new trails as well: in commerce, in science, even in how they lived. The line of “real life” heroes stretching back through Hickok and Kit Carson to the founders of the country connected them to the deeper values that their lives were founded on.

They saw that, too, in the Pony Express. People were excited about the service, not just because they wanted information as quickly as possible, but because the service and especially its riders embodied or symbolized some of the things they cared about: courage, physical prowess, the willingness to risk all in a race against Nature and Time.

If gunplay figured into it, so much the better, but you didn’t have to be literally wild to be celebrated. Being tenacious and undaunted in the face of myriad hardships would do.

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Buffalo Bill gets a lot of credit for advertising the Pony Express, and he deserves it. Not only did he include vignettes in his Western shows, he recruited riders and others who had worked for the service and put them onstage with him. He even rescued Alexander Majors from obscurity, retrieving him from Denver, enlisting Ingraham to “help” write his autobiography, and paying Rand McNally to publish the book a year before Majors turned eighty.

Generous though he was, Cody would not have done any of this if the Pony had not already been held in high regard and was at least somewhat famous, if not quite at the level that it would be as Cody’s shows gathered strength. The words Pony Express were synonymous not only with speed, but with adventure and rugged individualism and against the elements and all that. Cody enhanced the legend, but he didn’t invent it.

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It’s often said that the transcontinental telegraph killed the Pony Express. While the service did end the day the line was completed, that was by design; the Pony was always a short-term project.

It’s also said—less often—that the railroad killed the Pony and its ilk. There’s more truth to that, but again, people like Russell and his partners knew that day was coming; they all rode trains, Russell quite a lot. The idea was to sew up a monopoly before the transcontinental railroad came in. Then anyone who wanted to use the railroads-anyone who didn’t live next to the tracks—would have to pay. . . .

But our memory of [the Pony Express] has survived because it was far more. For us, the mystic chords of memory that Lincoln so memorably mentioned at the end of his inauguration address strike notes with deep roots. The tales, even those not entirely provable, are deep into who we want to be today and tomorrow. The values that we see in the Pony riders are values we cherish, even if we’ve never been near a barn, let alone a horse: adventure, speed, determination, endurance. The values of the service itself: dependability against all odds, unflagging commitment to a mission—these are values we too want to emulate, whether or not we’d go to the extreme lengths of Pony Bob or the White Indian.

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The raw ingredients of the Pony story—young men, horses, hardships, and danger—are potent bits for any narrative, whether in a rodeo ring or on the big screen. But there’s more to the Pony Express’s staying power than galloping horses and reckless young men. As important as Bill Cody and his shows were in keeping the memory of the service alive, I think it’s likely that we’d remember it even without the great showman. The Pony is the perfect transport vehicle for the things we still value in America, and for the realities we as a nation continue to face: speed, courage, individualism … distance, time, and, yes, money. If the Pony riders were brave archetypes of the American spirit racing across the American heartland, Russell and his partners were surely nineteenth-century venture capitalists. The fact that they failed so spectacularly is itself thoroughly American. If you’re going to fail, fail big.

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It didn’t make them better than us; we live in different times, with different challenges. But it does make their lives worthy of study and, at their best, emulation. The Pony flashed briefly across the American landscape, a strike of lightning in a sky often dark with danger and ambiguity. In its history, real and sometimes imagined, we see ourselves as we’d like to be: brave, resourceful, racing against nature and all manner of dangers, with determination in our hearts and a smile on our faces.

Mabel Loving and the Pony Express Riders

The year after Pony Bob died in a cold-water flat in Chicago, a St. Joseph, Missouri, housewife with little formal education began one of the most enterprising efforts on behalf of the memory of the Pony Express. Her name was Mabel Loving and she was an amateur poet. She was an amateur historian, too, who in the end unearthed some of the most valuable information about the Pony Express. Mrs. Loving started tracking down the surviving riders. No one had actually thought to do this.

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 and raced with the wind through narrow valleys. Day and night, in rain or sleet, under blue skies or in blinding snow, his footsteps never paused, save in the pitiless agony of savage death. He bridged a vast gulf and made a continent, and he thrilled a waiting people with news of faraway places. He kept the vigil of needed trust. And in each generation the imperishable legend is born anew, as muffied hoofbeats once more echo the romantic story of the Old West.

1935 Pony Reride

Yeah, son, says David, this old shack is where Mark Twain and Sir Richard Burton stayed as well as the Pony riders. Back in 1935 it became an important part of my own history. I was to ride in the Pony Express Association Race when my horse got kicked in the knee. I got discouraged. My sister offered to let me ride her horse, but I didn’t want to take a girl’s animal into the race. I did, though, and I set a record. I galloped ten miles in thirty-five minutes and one second. I can’t even get on a horse today and this old shed is just filled with junk.

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.

Drinking on the Pony Express

Burton observed uncountable instances of drinking along the route; being a traveler who enjoyed a dram himself, he commented frequently when the liquor supply was low. He does not appear to have passed up any opportunities to “liquor up,” as he calls it. His account seems to indicate that Alexander Majors’s famous admonition about sobriety was widely ignored, and modern research appears to confirm that.

Archaeological excavations conducted by Donald L. Hardesty of the University of Nevada-Reno in the late 1970s on Cold Springs and Sand Springs Stations in central Nevada uncovered hundreds of fragments of wine, champagne, gin, ale, brandy, beer, and whiskey bottles at both sites dating from the time of the Pony. Hardesty noted in a report prepared for the federal Bureau of Land Management in 1979 that there was ample evidence that dictums against taking strong drink were ignored. “The firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell was adamantly opposed to the use of alcohol beverages by its employees and required them to sign an oath saying that they would not indulge. But observations of drunken pony express riders falling off their horses [Hardesty cited Buffalo Bill Cody’s memoirs as offering an example] suggests that the oath was not too effective. The archaeological record of Cold Springs and Sand Springs stations supports that conclusion.”

Richard Burton not only noted countless instances of drinking but wryly reported that he had observed no indications of scriptural study, either. “There was no sign of Bible, Shakespeare, or Milton: a Holywell Street romance or two was the only attempt at literature,” he observed.