Pony Express
Quick, tell me everything you know about the Pony Express. It lasted a couple of decades, and the mail moved from one side of the country to the other, right? The men traveled the route in all weather, and they got robbed a lot. Right? Well, those were all things I used to think, until I went to the Pony Express Museum in Marysville, Kansas. That is the only of the Pony Express buildings located on it’s original site, by the way.
So let’s talk about those things I said up there, and find out which are true.
1. The Pony Express only ran for 19 months. It holds such a large place in the mind that it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.
2. It ran from St Joseph’s Missouri to Sacramento, California.
3. The mail did move in all weather, proving that the route was viable for the mail run all year long.
4. In the 19 months it ran, not one letter was lost.
However romantically we view it today, the Pony Express was a financial disaster, losing over $200,000 dollars in it’s short life.
It’s a far cry from the way we get mail today. Whether you pull letters from a bank of commercial mailboxes or a line of distinguished residential mailboxes, you can be pretty sure your mail carrier slept at home and not in a barn last night. He’s probably not stuffing those mailboxes from horseback, either.
No comments yet.