California Pony Express

Merchant & Mason, Downtown Vacaville, CA

Before the Pony Express mail was created,  it could take as long as six weeks for mail to arrive in California by packet boat from New York via the Panamanian isthmus. The Butterfield Stage could get it there in three weeks over the Oxbow Route through Yuma, Arizona. The Pony Express, a private venture, was formed and delivered the mail between St. Joseph, Missouri (where the train system stopped) to Sacramento and San Francisco in a whopping 10 days.

At twilight on April 3, 1860, a small batch of letters and newspapers was unloaded from a train in St. Joseph, Missouri, and given to the first rider in the newly formed Pony Express courier service. An ex-jockey named Johnny Fry, the first in a series of many  riders,  was ready. In all, it would take 10 days,  a chain of more than 150 relay stations 10 to 15 miles apart, with four hundred horses, around 80 young riders, plus station keepers, stock tenders, route superintendents, and shuttling supply wagons, to make this delivery happen.

Historic Pony Express route between St. Joseph, Missouri & Sacramento, California.

Missouri Kansas
Nebraska Colorado
Wyoming Utah
Nevada California

Pony Express National Historic Trail

It is hard to believe that young men once rode horses to carry mail from Missouri to California in the unprecedented time of only 10 days. This relay system along the Pony Express National Historic Trail in eight states was the most direct and practical means of east-west communications before the telegraph. Individual riders whose average speed was around 10.7 miles per hour would cover from 75 to 100 miles before reaching a home station to be relieved by another rider

William H. Russell, the founder of the Pony Express and a partner along with William B. Waddell and Alexander Majors in a freight and stagecoach company, owners of the Central Overland, California, and Pikes Peak Express Company were gambling on the success of their Pony Express--a fast mail delivery system between the Midwest to California.

Did You Know?
To carry the U.S. Mail across 1800 miles of wilderness, Pony Express riders changed horses about every 12-15 miles. At each station, the rider would quickly take the mochila with mail pouches from his saddle and throw it onto the saddle of the fresh horse - and off he went. The unique rectangular leather apron called a mochila (mail pouch) had pockets at each of its four corners. Three pockets called cantinas were filled with the letters and papers from the train and stayed locked for the entire journey; the fourth pocket would be filled with letters the rider would pick up and deliver along the way.

Just as the original Pony Express riders did, members of the nonprofit,  850-member National Pony Express Association re-enact the famed letter-carrying service each year, and have done so for over 30 years.  In ceremonial fashion, each rider is given a special edition of the Bible, similar to the one given the original Pony Express riders, and takes the traditional oath: "I do hereby swear before the great and living God that during my engagement with Russell, Majors and Waddell, I will under no circumstances use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with other employees of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful in my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers. So help me God."

A letter can be mailed via the volunteer riders for the 1860 price of $5.