The idea of an express delivery of letters carried by horse and rider, a “pony express,” was introduced to Congress by California Senator William Gwin in 1855. It was an idea before its time. Ocean delivery from New York around Cape Horn of South America to California was wholly acceptable at the time. The bill quietly expired in committee.

Two years later, a mail contract was awarded to John Butterfield’s Overland Mail Company. Butterfield’s Overland Mail Company included passenger stage service along a southern route to California. It is often confused with a completely different company that crossed Kansas in the 1860’s, known as the Butterfield Overland Despatch. The original Butterfield system of labor, horses and equipment proved that overland delivery could compete with ocean delivery and encouraged entrepreneurs to find ways of improving communications with the west coast.

As rumblings of civil war spread across the nation, the need for efficient transfer of information grew critical. A fortunate meeting between Sen. Gwin and William Russell of the massive freighting firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell initiated Russell into the workings of the proposed pony express. The entrepreneur freighter pledged that he could produce a pony express capable of delivering mail from the western outpost of St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, Calif., in an incredible 10 days. On April 3, 1860, the

Pony Express began service. Ten and one-half days later, the mail arrived in Sacramento. Fully equipped, the line comprised 190 stations, about 420 horses, 400 station men and assistants and 80 riders. Riders left San Francisco the same day arriving in St. Joseph to thunderous applause. The Pony Express was an immediate success.

After only one month of operation the grand success of the Pony Express was apparent. The latest rider arrived in St. Joseph, Mo. at 9:30 p.m. May 6, 1860, nine days and four hours from San Francisco. What had once been an amazing feat, was on the way to becoming commonplace. Thirty-five thousand dollars in drafts were transmitted to New York 12 days sooner than ocean steamer delivery could accomplish. Ominously, a communication in that same delivery threatened the triumph of the innovative Pony Express. Indians had stolen 30 express horses between Salt Lake and Carson Valley, Nev. An expected several-day delay turned into a complete shut down of operations as the Paiutes escalated hostility in a conflict that became known as the Pyramid Lake War. Stations were burned. Men were killed.

The June 2, 1860, Fort Scott Bulletin posted a letter that had been delivered by Pony Express to St. Joseph, Mo., relating news that express men had been killed at Williams Station. Several hundred men were reportedly seeking revenge on the “Pah-Utah” nation.

The Leavenworth Dispatch reported that on June 23, 1860, a rider had brought the first mail from California in three weeks. The article reported that seven riders had been “lost.” The company had also sustained considerable losses “in stock, provisions, wagons, etc.” One station alone had reported a loss of $1,500. “The agents are doing all in their power, to keep up the connection, by partly forcing and by partly stealing their way through the hostile country.”

There was no military presence in the area. The Dispatch continued, “Strong efforts are being made to secure the presence of the U. S. troops of the Salt Lake Department ... Volunteers and regulars are already in the field.” The Paiutes laid an ambush. Three quarters of the command of 105 volunteers were slaughtered. A second command of 600 men finally drove the Paiutes into the mountains. By July 7, 1860, the Fort Scott Bulletin reported that U. S. Troops had opened the route of the Pony Express. By mid-July the Pony Express was not only running regularly, but had increased delivery to two runs a week.

Occasional disruptions continued into August but for the most part the Pyramid Lake War was over and the miracle of the Pony Express rose from its ashes to delivery of the mail across 2,400 miles in the lightning quick span of just over nine days.

The Pony Express was only in operation for 18 months, supplanted by the completion of the telegraph wire over the same route. But in that 18 months the nation was captivated by the young men who rode their fiery steeds through every danger and difficulty to “bring the Atlantic and Pacific shores within a week of each other.” In the words of a correspondent of the St. Louis Republican, “It is a noble enterprise ... and I think of the toil and peril of the way, my heart says, God speed to the boy and the pony” on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st RD Geneseo, KS. Phone (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.