November 11, 2021 • 27 mins
Before the train and telegraph, for a short time in American history, if you wanted your mail to get across the entire country, you relied on men who travel 1900 miles on horseback at speeds so fast they might as well be competing in the Kentucky Derby. In this episode, Helen and Matt look at the critical role of the Pony Express riders .
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is jobs, a lead where we talk about old
timey jobs you just don't see anymore. This week, we're
saddling up to go to eighteen sixty to get a
job as a Pony Express writer. Twelve hours a day,
riding on a horse, Snakes, bears and cougars, Oh my,
(00:23):
no drinking and no cussin that lion buffalo, Bill Cody,
surprisingly well paid, sore butts the text messages of its time,
and mail that was almost as important as God, Matt.
We've got a really cool guest today. Jim D. Felice
has written a ton of bestsellers, including American Sniper, and
(00:46):
today we are talking with him about his book West
Like Lightning, which is about the Pony Express. Jim knows
so much about the Pony Express. He actually traveled the
route of the Pony Express while researching for this book.
Pretty incredible. So, Helen, what do you know about the
(01:06):
Pony Express? Um? I feel like the Pony Express. Okay,
it's something to do with delivering mail. There were definitely
horses involved. There may or may not have been a
Kevin Costner movie about it. I think that's I think
that's pretty much all I know about the Pony Express. Okay, yeah,
(01:29):
and I just got done watching the entire series of
Futurama over the past few years, and their business is
Planet Express, and so that's just the Pony Express of
you know, the A thousand years into the future. Yeah, yeah, okay.
So the Pony Express was a mail service delivering mostly
(01:49):
messages and newspapers using horse mounted riders. It only operated
for a year and a half. April third, eighteen sixty
was when it started to October one, so a very
short lived business. But that's pretty impressive that it was
only that short of a time and yet we still
(02:10):
know about it today. Yeah. I would say most people
have at least heard of the Pony Express today. So
it does have this legend around it, and that's mostly
because of kind of it became part of the myth
of the the American West afterward. But let's take a
look at mail before the Pony Express. Before the Pony
(02:31):
Express existed, if you sent a letter from let's say
New York to San Francisco, it would have taken six
to nine months to get there because most likely it
would have traveled by sea, would have gone south to Panama,
where it would then crossed by land and then be
picked up by another ship, or possibly it would go
(02:52):
all the way down past Argentina and back up, then
then miraculously, six or seven months later, it would show
up somewhere in California. There was another way by using
stage coaches, but whether it would successfully arrive there was
not necessarily what you would hope for. So the Pony
(03:14):
Express was basically the era's text messaging system, but it
took ten days to get something. But there was a
vast improvement over the months that would have taken before
the Pony started writing. Wow, I mean nine months. So
if you're if you have a newspaper subscription, you know, like,
(03:38):
I wonder what was happening in the world nine months ago. Well,
if you had a lot of money and you really
wanted your stuff to get across the continent, you could
get it there and maybe a month or two if
you were lucky and you had enough money. But yeah,
most people weren't getting mail very quickly. Wow. I mean
(03:59):
if you were getting if you were getting any sort
of check in the mail, the check would expire before
it even got to you. It wouldn't be very big anyway,
it'd be likes wow, so I could see why if
the mail is taking that long to get to you. Yeah,
you would need and you know that there needed to
be a new business model. So that's that's when the
(04:19):
Pony Express sprang up. Yes, before we go forward with this,
we probably should say that the Pony Express was started
by three guys, entrepreneurs, William Russell, William Woodell and Alexander Majors.
We're gonna hop into a time machine now and and
go back to eighteen sixty and look at this job.
(04:42):
These Pony Express riders. What were the qualifications. There is
a great poster looking for Pony Express riders and only
orphans need apply. The idea being that they wanted brave
young men willing to risk their lie and had nothing
to lose. That poster is not authentic, and that wasn't
(05:05):
exactly true. Um, they were very athletic, they were very daring.
Supposedly they were good looking, but they weren't orphans as
far as we know. They were all male. They're all
roughly around twenty years old, fairly good shape, and it
takes a certain personality, especially in you know, in the
desert areas, to go through there. The riders were very
(05:28):
well paid for the time. We have reports of people
making up to about a hundred dollars a month, so
they were very well paid. They were kind of the
rock stars of the time. I'm I am hung up
on the fact that he said a lot of them
were good looking. It's like a weird like did the
(05:51):
guy who was hiring have some weird fetish Like I
could see why you had to be athletic. Obviously, if
you're riding a horse like a the entire you know,
you had to be in shape, but you also had
to be hot. Being athletic maybe was presumably what made
them attractive. But yeah, so he said that most were
(06:13):
the age of twenty. I just want to point out
that there was a famous fourteen year old Pony Express
writer named Billy Tate who did He was tragically um
killed by um Native Americans. Wow, So this, I mean
there was This was a dangerous job. I mean this
(06:34):
that you had to have. I guess that's that's part
of the job description, that you need to be brave
and you need to be adventurous because you're kind of
you are going into the literal wild wild West. I
will say that Native Americans are actually way down there
on the actual threat because by far the biggest threat
was probably the weather, the climate, and yes, rattlesnakes, bears, wildlife.
(07:00):
Oh there were no lions or tigers. But yeah, you
were listening off dangerous animals. So and I just I
automatically just go, oh my, yeah, that it's just a
third of those dangerous animals from Wizard of the Wizard
of Us. But speaking of of Kansas, it started not
too far from where I live in St. Joseph, Missouri. Today,
(07:22):
there is a museum there that you can visit. I've
been there. Um, And it went all the way through
the Rocky Mountains, all the way west through the Sierra Nevada,
which was probably the most dangerous portion of the trip
to Sacramento, and then there was a final route to
San Francisco from there through the Sierra Nevada, which I know.
(07:43):
I'm very familiar with the Sierra Nevada because I'm obsessed
with the Donner Party. You definitely didn't want to go
there in winter, otherwise you would eat each other. But
that's a completely that that's kids. That's a different episode.
He said that some were paid as much as a
hundred dollars a month, which was a lot back then.
But I read one account of one rider getting a
(08:04):
hundred and twenty five bucks a month. Keep in mind,
this is when most unskilled workers were getting fifteen bucks
a month tops, to put it in perspective. So, yeah,
it's a lot of money. But I assume you had
to be porsi. I don't know if that's a word,
but you had to have skills, you had to be
(08:24):
a good rider. Oh okay, yeah, I was like, what
were you going with this? Okay, most of the riders
didn't weigh over a hundred and twenty five pounds, like
he wanted to be lighter, just kind of likes horse
jockeys today. Yeah, so you're a man who weighs a
hundred pounds, so you must be really wiry, like very thin, yes,
(08:47):
and kind of small for for a fully grown man, definitely.
And the horses were petite. They were ponies, and these
were these were ponies that were some of the fastest
in the country. That they went all over the country
to find these ponies. They usually came from the area
where they rode, which made a lot of sense because
(09:08):
that they'd know the area and they would know, you know,
the shortcuts. One of the dangers is to be very
very easy to get lost, and there's no real roads.
There were generally trails that they would ride on, but
if you want to cut a little bit here, cut
a little bit there, it really helped to know where
those shortcuts were in the dark. Oh, so, is this
(09:30):
like a relay situation where one person would ride for
a part of the trip and then they would pass
off the package to the next person who would ride
the next part of the trip. Exactly. Yeah, So they'd
go approximately ten miles between these little stations that were
along the route, and they had their knapsack of mail
(09:50):
and they would just handed off. So that makes a
lot more sense. I thought it was one person going
the entire way, which is that's intense, But it makes
much more sense that he's saying each leg of the
trip was they would hire someone from that area, so
they would be familiar with the roads, they would know
(10:11):
the terrain, they would get it to their you know
that that checkmark, and then pass it off to the
next person. Okay, so they had a knapsack and obviously
(10:32):
they needed a horse or you're saying it was a pony.
What else did they need, so the riders. They were
very conscientious about protecting the mochila where the male pouch.
There were two rules. Rule number one was the male
must go through. The male is more important than the rider,
more important than the horse. The male is almost as
(10:54):
important as God. And rule number two was see rule
number one. Whether they were armed or not is kind
of a question of debate. Certainly some of them would
have been carrying weapons, but the truth is they were
on the fastest horses around. So the thing that you
(11:14):
would do if you were presented with that sort of
danger is you know, say, okay, horse, let's go a
little bit faster and get out of here. Epistles were
kind of expensive, but I would guess that certainly a
number of them had it, but that wasn't really issued
by the company majors. He was so religious that every
employee was supposed to receive a small Bible, and we
(11:36):
have some of those bible snap and um. He would
make them swear no, that they would do a whole
bunch of things mostly not do a bunch of things,
including no cussing and no drinking. Now, if you read
any of the accounts of life at the times, uh,
(11:57):
they certainly did more than their share of cussing, and
I guarantee they were doing a lot of drinking, but
they may not have been doing either while he was around.
Whoa this is that? That is? That's all I gotta
say that. It's like, not only do you have to
be a pounds or less and athletic and in grade
(12:21):
shape and have good horsemanship, but also dag nabbit, no
cussing and no drinking. Yeah. Very disciplined, Yeah, very disciplined.
I mean do you think that when these guys, when
they had their hand on the Bible, maybe the other
hand was like fingers crossed behind their back, like yeah, yeah,
no drinking and kessing, no problem. Ye. So now we're
(12:43):
gonna look at what a typical day for a Pony
Express rider looked like. The Pony Express riders shift would
start as soon as he picked up the muchillo from
another rider, and he would spend about twelve hours really
in the saddle as you're road from main station to
another main station, and all along the way, I might
(13:05):
stop maybe six times, you know a few more, depending
on where we are. Someone would be waiting at some
outpost or with a fresh horse. He would ride up
jump off the horse, grab the saddle bag, throw it
on another course, and you know, and then ride off.
To be honest, it was mostly boring through a lot
(13:25):
of the stretch until it wasn't. And when it wasn't
it could be, you know, terrifying. If you're in the
Sierra's you could be trying to make your way through
twelve ft of snow. But when you reached another larger station,
you would give the mail bag off to the next rider.
Having ridden all that time, you probably were pretty hungry,
(13:46):
so you would would get some food and then you
would go to sleep, usually in a barn or sometimes
an attic, and you would rest up until the rider
came from the other direction, in which case you'd draw
back the other way until you're arrived at your home station.
Ideally they would have several riders available, but you could
(14:09):
be riding for twelve hours, four times a week. It's
interesting that the riders often didn't change, but they changed
the horses. And honestly, the more I think about this,
I think they had a pretty sweet gig. I mean,
they got to see the country. They had three to
four twelve hour rides a week. Now, some of these
of these stations were pretty rudimentary. They wasn't much there,
(14:31):
like just an old barn sometimes though they were like
really nice parts of military forts and so there were
amenities and even though it was isolated, they still had
decent food. You know. It's just it's just way more
physical and you need to have a really good butt padding.
But I do agree with you, like, if you are
an outdoorsy person, um, I mean, it was probably the
(14:54):
most beautiful scenery. You know, this was in the early
days of the country and everything was unspoiled, old and
so gorgeous. So if you were an outdoorsy person, you
probably got to see America at its most wild and
most raw and most gorgeous. Yeah, a lot of beautiful,
pristine wilderness for sure. As well. They were on their
(15:16):
butt a lot though that that was okay, just like
you for like a few minutes at a time, and
I was like, okay, I'm done. Yeah, weren't you like
out that everything hurts? My butt's going to be feeling
that for a week. Yeah, you make a good point.
That's a long day. I'm so interested that that this
(15:37):
that the Pony Express wasn't part of the United States
Postal Service and that the postal service existed, and this
was just on top of that, you know, sort of
parallel with the postal service like EPs or FedEx or Yeah.
It was very expensive too, and there were other reasons
why they did it other than trying to make money
(15:58):
because around the same time time we got a war
a bruin. Well, there were three different needs, and the
one that we remember today was the need for people
in the West to communicate with people back east. But
there were two other reasons. One was the specifically northern interests,
(16:20):
the power brokers, people with money wanted to maintain a
connection with California because they were literally pulling money out
of the ground there and so they wanted to have
some way of keeping in touch with that part of
the country, especially since many of them saw a conflict
(16:40):
coming with the South. And number three was at Russell,
Majors and Waddell, to three guys who owned the company,
the company Express was intended as a loss leader. Really,
it was a kind of a smaller service, even though
it's a very important service. It's real goal was to
get them a much larger contract from the federal government
(17:04):
to deliver mail and also to get publicity for themselves.
It was never the only thing that they were going
to do. It became the thing that they were famous for,
but they didn't see it as something that would last
ten years. And quite honestly, I think they'd be surprised
that we're still talking about it today. So we're talking
(17:24):
about like pre Civil War era. Yeah, it was. It
was started the year before the Civil War started, and
we continued in that those first few months of the
of the American Civil War, California was kind of isolated.
I mean, there was a lot of wealth, there um
a lot of investment, but between California and say St. Joseph, Missouri,
(17:49):
there wasn't much settlement. And that's where the Pony Express
comes in linking the country during a time where it
was very critical that they're linked, because there was a
race by both in the Civil War, the North and
the South to get to the West. I mean a
lot of people don't realize that the Civil War was
fought quite a bit and and those those western territories.
(18:10):
You know, I'm still hung up on the fact that
they were allegedly hot. Matt They were fit, and they
were athletic, and they were some of them were hot.
But were any of them famous. Yes, we had Buffalo Bill.
(18:38):
Have you heard of Buffalo Bill? Yes, I have heard
of Buffalo Bill. He's a famous like wild West guy.
Is he a Pony Express writer? He was? Well, I
have to say that anybody who was anybody in the
West at the time had some sort of connection with
the Pony Express, even while Bill Hillcock worked for the
company at the time. But my absolute favorite was Buffalo
(19:02):
Bill Cody. Cody is the most famous Pony Express rider
who actually never was part of the Pony Express, although
he claimed to have ridden for the Pony I think
we were pretty sure that he didn't. However, what he
did do long after the Pony's demise, Cody had the
Wild West Show, and the Wild West Show was enormously popular,
(19:26):
and just about every Wild West show it would start
with a little vignette featuring the exploits of the Pony
Express riders, who generally would be chased by either bandits
or Native Americans or hopefully both. Buffalo Bill did more
to popularize the romantic nature of the Pony Express and
(19:49):
any single person. So he's absolutely my favorite Pony Express person.
Even if you didn't ride, I'm shaking up here like
I had no I had no idea. He made it up,
Like this is breaking news to me. What the heck?
I feel so deceived right now? Whoa buffalo? Bill Cody
(20:10):
was a lying liar who lied so he wasn't even
in the Pony Express, but he just made up this
these crazy stories and made it like a fantasy and
his like show and people were like, whoa, that's so cool.
He may be the reason why we're even talking about
the Pony Express today, this one guy here, because of
he's grand tales and turning it into this big show.
(20:34):
This sounds pretty cool. It sounds like this was a
much faster way to get your mail than the United
States Postal Service, which would take like nine months, we learned.
And it sounds like it was a great job for
the people who did it. So why did it only
last for a year and a half. Well, the reason
might surprise you. Well, you know, a success is a
funny thing. One of the things that they wanted to
(20:57):
do was to get a big contract from the federal
from it, and they did yet a contract at best
half of what they had hoped for. They certainly got
a lot of publicity, which they wanted to do. But
given the fact that the only way that they were
able to survive for as long as they did was
that Russell was kiding checks and cashing bonds that belonged
(21:22):
to the government but not to him, I don't know
that we can actually call him very successful, especially since
he was arrested for doing that. At that point, the
company was in so much financial trouble, not just because
of the Pony Express, although the Pony was losing money
from day one, that they just kind of went downhill
(21:42):
very quickly. In Russell's defense, and I'm probably one of
the only people who defend him that in his mind,
when he was spending the money, the money was going
into the company, that just wasn't enough of it. He
was living pretty large, but he wasn't necessarily aligned in
his pockets with the money. So it launched in April
eighteen sixty and the very last ride was in October
(22:08):
eighteen sixty one. By that time, the service had dwindled
down and been taken over by Wells Fargo, So it's
a pretty short ride. What did you think was the
obvious reason why the Pony Expressed didn't last very long?
If you're paying all of your writers a hundred bucks
and the average wage of that time was fifteen bucks.
(22:32):
That's you that you're paying quite a lot in um
salaries to your employees courses today and at the time
we're not cheap. So there's probably a lot of operating
budget as well that maybe like, like I don't know
who had enough money to pay the Pony Express an
outrageous amount of money to get something from A to
(22:54):
B in ten days. Yeah, and the most important thing
to get out there fast, get out there quickly was messages,
you know, important messages. So he mentioned at the beginning,
well it was like text messaging. But in eighteen sixty
so the invention, of course of the telegraph had made
(23:14):
messaging long distances quite easier for many years. Yeah, so
that was the But see that there was no transcontinental
telegraph um before the Pony Express. They were building that
when the Pony Express was an operation. Had the Pony
Express started maybe even ten years earlier, they would have
(23:36):
had a flourishing business because that would be the only
way to get a message across quickly. But it's like
you start your business and then suddenly a year later
the telegraph surprise and they're like, yeah, man, Like it
just so happens that that that first transcontinental telegraph between
the East and the West coast was completed in October
(23:59):
eighteen sixty one, and so a couple of days before
the last Pony Express, right, So yeah, before the Transcontinental Telegraph,
over thirty five thousand letters were delivered by the Pony Express.
So it was really vital for that year and a
half to connect California with the rest of the United States.
(24:21):
But there are definitely other reasons why we still think
about the Pony Express today. There's kind of this romance
of the West that the Pony Express really embodies. Even
doing the research on the Pony expresses so many cool stories.
The truth is a lot of the stories are not true.
But you know what, that's really part of the attraction.
(24:43):
I mean, the stories that we tell ourselves are supposed
to be entertaining, and they also remind us of what
our bed rock principles are. You know, we can persevere
against hard times, whether it's lizards or tornadoes, or the
hot sun in the desert, or viruses that killed hundreds
(25:04):
of thousands of people. We can persevere. And that's one
of the things that the Pony Express reminds us of
that is really cool. I mean, I I can't. I'm
trying to picture what it would be like to be
on the receiving end of a letter from the Pony Express.
You think about what that message had to go through
(25:25):
to get to you. You know, it traveled on horseback
for almost two thousand miles, multiple people relaying, crossing over
vast expanses of like nothing. It's crossed over the Sierra Mountains,
whereas today you get a package from Amazon, you get
a package from you know, and it's like from China.
(25:45):
It's like, but it wrote a boat and then it
got on plane and then it got out of truck
and here it. I know this sounds a little cliche,
but like it kind of symbolizes part of this individualism
that has been pervasive in American culture since the early
days of of the country. Few occupations are as individualistic
(26:06):
as Pony Express writers. I would think they are out
there on their own. Oh yeah, it's not like your
boss can even check in with you. So they were drinking,
Let's sure they were. Probably they were probably drinking and
cussing and the whole thing. Thanks to our expert who's
a number one New York Times best selling author. By
(26:26):
the way, Jim D. Police who wrote the book West
Like Lightning, and tell us what you think about this episode. Also,
if any of you have ridden a horse for like
twelve hours at a time, let us know how it
felt and what it did to your butt. Don't get
graphic or anything. Come on let us know on Twitter
at Job Salete Pod. Also rate and review us. Job
(26:49):
Salete is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt That's Me. The show was
conceived and produced by Steve Za Markey, Anthony Savini, and
Jason Elliott. Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is
(27:09):
Amelia Paulka, our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme
music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. A special thanks
to our I Heart Radio team, Katrina Norvelle, Nikki Etre,
Ali Cantor, Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson, Connell Byrne and Bob Pittman.
This is jobs, a lead where we talk about old
timey jobs you just don't see anymore. This week, we're
saddling up to go to eighteen sixty to get a
job as a Pony Express writer. Twelve hours a day,
riding on a horse, Snakes, bears and cougars, Oh my,
(00:23):
no drinking and no cussin that lion buffalo, Bill Cody,
surprisingly well paid, sore butts the text messages of its time,
and mail that was almost as important as God, Matt.
We've got a really cool guest today. Jim D. Felice
has written a ton of bestsellers, including American Sniper, and
(00:46):
today we are talking with him about his book West
Like Lightning, which is about the Pony Express. Jim knows
so much about the Pony Express. He actually traveled the
route of the Pony Express while researching for this book.
Pretty incredible. So, Helen, what do you know about the
(01:06):
Pony Express? Um? I feel like the Pony Express. Okay,
it's something to do with delivering mail. There were definitely
horses involved. There may or may not have been a
Kevin Costner movie about it. I think that's I think
that's pretty much all I know about the Pony Express. Okay, yeah,
(01:29):
and I just got done watching the entire series of
Futurama over the past few years, and their business is
Planet Express, and so that's just the Pony Express of
you know, the A thousand years into the future. Yeah, yeah, okay.
So the Pony Express was a mail service delivering mostly
(01:49):
messages and newspapers using horse mounted riders. It only operated
for a year and a half. April third, eighteen sixty
was when it started to October one, so a very
short lived business. But that's pretty impressive that it was
only that short of a time and yet we still
(02:10):
know about it today. Yeah. I would say most people
have at least heard of the Pony Express today. So
it does have this legend around it, and that's mostly
because of kind of it became part of the myth
of the the American West afterward. But let's take a
look at mail before the Pony Express. Before the Pony
(02:31):
Express existed, if you sent a letter from let's say
New York to San Francisco, it would have taken six
to nine months to get there because most likely it
would have traveled by sea, would have gone south to Panama,
where it would then crossed by land and then be
picked up by another ship, or possibly it would go
(02:52):
all the way down past Argentina and back up, then
then miraculously, six or seven months later, it would show
up somewhere in California. There was another way by using
stage coaches, but whether it would successfully arrive there was
not necessarily what you would hope for. So the Pony
(03:14):
Express was basically the era's text messaging system, but it
took ten days to get something. But there was a
vast improvement over the months that would have taken before
the Pony started writing. Wow, I mean nine months. So
if you're if you have a newspaper subscription, you know, like,
(03:38):
I wonder what was happening in the world nine months ago. Well,
if you had a lot of money and you really
wanted your stuff to get across the continent, you could
get it there and maybe a month or two if
you were lucky and you had enough money. But yeah,
most people weren't getting mail very quickly. Wow. I mean
(03:59):
if you were getting if you were getting any sort
of check in the mail, the check would expire before
it even got to you. It wouldn't be very big anyway,
it'd be likes wow, so I could see why if
the mail is taking that long to get to you. Yeah,
you would need and you know that there needed to
be a new business model. So that's that's when the
(04:19):
Pony Express sprang up. Yes, before we go forward with this,
we probably should say that the Pony Express was started
by three guys, entrepreneurs, William Russell, William Woodell and Alexander Majors.
We're gonna hop into a time machine now and and
go back to eighteen sixty and look at this job.
(04:42):
These Pony Express riders. What were the qualifications. There is
a great poster looking for Pony Express riders and only
orphans need apply. The idea being that they wanted brave
young men willing to risk their lie and had nothing
to lose. That poster is not authentic, and that wasn't
(05:05):
exactly true. Um, they were very athletic, they were very daring.
Supposedly they were good looking, but they weren't orphans as
far as we know. They were all male. They're all
roughly around twenty years old, fairly good shape, and it
takes a certain personality, especially in you know, in the
desert areas, to go through there. The riders were very
(05:28):
well paid for the time. We have reports of people
making up to about a hundred dollars a month, so
they were very well paid. They were kind of the
rock stars of the time. I'm I am hung up
on the fact that he said a lot of them
were good looking. It's like a weird like did the
(05:51):
guy who was hiring have some weird fetish Like I
could see why you had to be athletic. Obviously, if
you're riding a horse like a the entire you know,
you had to be in shape, but you also had
to be hot. Being athletic maybe was presumably what made
them attractive. But yeah, so he said that most were
(06:13):
the age of twenty. I just want to point out
that there was a famous fourteen year old Pony Express
writer named Billy Tate who did He was tragically um
killed by um Native Americans. Wow, So this, I mean
there was This was a dangerous job. I mean this
(06:34):
that you had to have. I guess that's that's part
of the job description, that you need to be brave
and you need to be adventurous because you're kind of
you are going into the literal wild wild West. I
will say that Native Americans are actually way down there
on the actual threat because by far the biggest threat
was probably the weather, the climate, and yes, rattlesnakes, bears, wildlife.
(07:00):
Oh there were no lions or tigers. But yeah, you
were listening off dangerous animals. So and I just I
automatically just go, oh my, yeah, that it's just a
third of those dangerous animals from Wizard of the Wizard
of Us. But speaking of of Kansas, it started not
too far from where I live in St. Joseph, Missouri. Today,
(07:22):
there is a museum there that you can visit. I've
been there. Um, And it went all the way through
the Rocky Mountains, all the way west through the Sierra Nevada,
which was probably the most dangerous portion of the trip
to Sacramento, and then there was a final route to
San Francisco from there through the Sierra Nevada, which I know.
(07:43):
I'm very familiar with the Sierra Nevada because I'm obsessed
with the Donner Party. You definitely didn't want to go
there in winter, otherwise you would eat each other. But
that's a completely that that's kids. That's a different episode.
He said that some were paid as much as a
hundred dollars a month, which was a lot back then.
But I read one account of one rider getting a
(08:04):
hundred and twenty five bucks a month. Keep in mind,
this is when most unskilled workers were getting fifteen bucks
a month tops, to put it in perspective. So, yeah,
it's a lot of money. But I assume you had
to be porsi. I don't know if that's a word,
but you had to have skills, you had to be
(08:24):
a good rider. Oh okay, yeah, I was like, what
were you going with this? Okay, most of the riders
didn't weigh over a hundred and twenty five pounds, like
he wanted to be lighter, just kind of likes horse
jockeys today. Yeah, so you're a man who weighs a
hundred pounds, so you must be really wiry, like very thin, yes,
(08:47):
and kind of small for for a fully grown man, definitely.
And the horses were petite. They were ponies, and these
were these were ponies that were some of the fastest
in the country. That they went all over the country
to find these ponies. They usually came from the area
where they rode, which made a lot of sense because
(09:08):
that they'd know the area and they would know, you know,
the shortcuts. One of the dangers is to be very
very easy to get lost, and there's no real roads.
There were generally trails that they would ride on, but
if you want to cut a little bit here, cut
a little bit there, it really helped to know where
those shortcuts were in the dark. Oh, so, is this
(09:30):
like a relay situation where one person would ride for
a part of the trip and then they would pass
off the package to the next person who would ride
the next part of the trip. Exactly. Yeah, So they'd
go approximately ten miles between these little stations that were
along the route, and they had their knapsack of mail
(09:50):
and they would just handed off. So that makes a
lot more sense. I thought it was one person going
the entire way, which is that's intense, But it makes
much more sense that he's saying each leg of the
trip was they would hire someone from that area, so
they would be familiar with the roads, they would know
(10:11):
the terrain, they would get it to their you know
that that checkmark, and then pass it off to the
next person. Okay, so they had a knapsack and obviously
(10:32):
they needed a horse or you're saying it was a pony.
What else did they need, so the riders. They were
very conscientious about protecting the mochila where the male pouch.
There were two rules. Rule number one was the male
must go through. The male is more important than the rider,
more important than the horse. The male is almost as
(10:54):
important as God. And rule number two was see rule
number one. Whether they were armed or not is kind
of a question of debate. Certainly some of them would
have been carrying weapons, but the truth is they were
on the fastest horses around. So the thing that you
(11:14):
would do if you were presented with that sort of
danger is you know, say, okay, horse, let's go a
little bit faster and get out of here. Epistles were
kind of expensive, but I would guess that certainly a
number of them had it, but that wasn't really issued
by the company majors. He was so religious that every
employee was supposed to receive a small Bible, and we
(11:36):
have some of those bible snap and um. He would
make them swear no, that they would do a whole
bunch of things mostly not do a bunch of things,
including no cussing and no drinking. Now, if you read
any of the accounts of life at the times, uh,
(11:57):
they certainly did more than their share of cussing, and
I guarantee they were doing a lot of drinking, but
they may not have been doing either while he was around.
Whoa this is that? That is? That's all I gotta
say that. It's like, not only do you have to
be a pounds or less and athletic and in grade
(12:21):
shape and have good horsemanship, but also dag nabbit, no
cussing and no drinking. Yeah. Very disciplined, Yeah, very disciplined.
I mean do you think that when these guys, when
they had their hand on the Bible, maybe the other
hand was like fingers crossed behind their back, like yeah, yeah,
no drinking and kessing, no problem. Ye. So now we're
(12:43):
gonna look at what a typical day for a Pony
Express rider looked like. The Pony Express riders shift would
start as soon as he picked up the muchillo from
another rider, and he would spend about twelve hours really
in the saddle as you're road from main station to
another main station, and all along the way, I might
(13:05):
stop maybe six times, you know a few more, depending
on where we are. Someone would be waiting at some
outpost or with a fresh horse. He would ride up
jump off the horse, grab the saddle bag, throw it
on another course, and you know, and then ride off.
To be honest, it was mostly boring through a lot
(13:25):
of the stretch until it wasn't. And when it wasn't
it could be, you know, terrifying. If you're in the
Sierra's you could be trying to make your way through
twelve ft of snow. But when you reached another larger station,
you would give the mail bag off to the next rider.
Having ridden all that time, you probably were pretty hungry,
(13:46):
so you would would get some food and then you
would go to sleep, usually in a barn or sometimes
an attic, and you would rest up until the rider
came from the other direction, in which case you'd draw
back the other way until you're arrived at your home station.
Ideally they would have several riders available, but you could
(14:09):
be riding for twelve hours, four times a week. It's
interesting that the riders often didn't change, but they changed
the horses. And honestly, the more I think about this,
I think they had a pretty sweet gig. I mean,
they got to see the country. They had three to
four twelve hour rides a week. Now, some of these
of these stations were pretty rudimentary. They wasn't much there,
(14:31):
like just an old barn sometimes though they were like
really nice parts of military forts and so there were
amenities and even though it was isolated, they still had
decent food. You know. It's just it's just way more
physical and you need to have a really good butt padding.
But I do agree with you, like, if you are
an outdoorsy person, um, I mean, it was probably the
(14:54):
most beautiful scenery. You know, this was in the early
days of the country and everything was unspoiled, old and
so gorgeous. So if you were an outdoorsy person, you
probably got to see America at its most wild and
most raw and most gorgeous. Yeah, a lot of beautiful,
pristine wilderness for sure. As well. They were on their
(15:16):
butt a lot though that that was okay, just like
you for like a few minutes at a time, and
I was like, okay, I'm done. Yeah, weren't you like
out that everything hurts? My butt's going to be feeling
that for a week. Yeah, you make a good point.
That's a long day. I'm so interested that that this
(15:37):
that the Pony Express wasn't part of the United States
Postal Service and that the postal service existed, and this
was just on top of that, you know, sort of
parallel with the postal service like EPs or FedEx or Yeah.
It was very expensive too, and there were other reasons
why they did it other than trying to make money
(15:58):
because around the same time time we got a war
a bruin. Well, there were three different needs, and the
one that we remember today was the need for people
in the West to communicate with people back east. But
there were two other reasons. One was the specifically northern interests,
(16:20):
the power brokers, people with money wanted to maintain a
connection with California because they were literally pulling money out
of the ground there and so they wanted to have
some way of keeping in touch with that part of
the country, especially since many of them saw a conflict
(16:40):
coming with the South. And number three was at Russell,
Majors and Waddell, to three guys who owned the company,
the company Express was intended as a loss leader. Really,
it was a kind of a smaller service, even though
it's a very important service. It's real goal was to
get them a much larger contract from the federal government
(17:04):
to deliver mail and also to get publicity for themselves.
It was never the only thing that they were going
to do. It became the thing that they were famous for,
but they didn't see it as something that would last
ten years. And quite honestly, I think they'd be surprised
that we're still talking about it today. So we're talking
(17:24):
about like pre Civil War era. Yeah, it was. It
was started the year before the Civil War started, and
we continued in that those first few months of the
of the American Civil War, California was kind of isolated.
I mean, there was a lot of wealth, there um
a lot of investment, but between California and say St. Joseph, Missouri,
(17:49):
there wasn't much settlement. And that's where the Pony Express
comes in linking the country during a time where it
was very critical that they're linked, because there was a
race by both in the Civil War, the North and
the South to get to the West. I mean a
lot of people don't realize that the Civil War was
fought quite a bit and and those those western territories.
(18:10):
You know, I'm still hung up on the fact that
they were allegedly hot. Matt They were fit, and they
were athletic, and they were some of them were hot.
But were any of them famous. Yes, we had Buffalo Bill.
(18:38):
Have you heard of Buffalo Bill? Yes, I have heard
of Buffalo Bill. He's a famous like wild West guy.
Is he a Pony Express writer? He was? Well, I
have to say that anybody who was anybody in the
West at the time had some sort of connection with
the Pony Express, even while Bill Hillcock worked for the
company at the time. But my absolute favorite was Buffalo
(19:02):
Bill Cody. Cody is the most famous Pony Express rider
who actually never was part of the Pony Express, although
he claimed to have ridden for the Pony I think
we were pretty sure that he didn't. However, what he
did do long after the Pony's demise, Cody had the
Wild West Show, and the Wild West Show was enormously popular,
(19:26):
and just about every Wild West show it would start
with a little vignette featuring the exploits of the Pony
Express riders, who generally would be chased by either bandits
or Native Americans or hopefully both. Buffalo Bill did more
to popularize the romantic nature of the Pony Express and
(19:49):
any single person. So he's absolutely my favorite Pony Express person.
Even if you didn't ride, I'm shaking up here like
I had no I had no idea. He made it up,
Like this is breaking news to me. What the heck?
I feel so deceived right now? Whoa buffalo? Bill Cody
(20:10):
was a lying liar who lied so he wasn't even
in the Pony Express, but he just made up this
these crazy stories and made it like a fantasy and
his like show and people were like, whoa, that's so cool.
He may be the reason why we're even talking about
the Pony Express today, this one guy here, because of
he's grand tales and turning it into this big show.
(20:34):
This sounds pretty cool. It sounds like this was a
much faster way to get your mail than the United
States Postal Service, which would take like nine months, we learned.
And it sounds like it was a great job for
the people who did it. So why did it only
last for a year and a half. Well, the reason
might surprise you. Well, you know, a success is a
funny thing. One of the things that they wanted to
(20:57):
do was to get a big contract from the federal
from it, and they did yet a contract at best
half of what they had hoped for. They certainly got
a lot of publicity, which they wanted to do. But
given the fact that the only way that they were
able to survive for as long as they did was
that Russell was kiding checks and cashing bonds that belonged
(21:22):
to the government but not to him, I don't know
that we can actually call him very successful, especially since
he was arrested for doing that. At that point, the
company was in so much financial trouble, not just because
of the Pony Express, although the Pony was losing money
from day one, that they just kind of went downhill
(21:42):
very quickly. In Russell's defense, and I'm probably one of
the only people who defend him that in his mind,
when he was spending the money, the money was going
into the company, that just wasn't enough of it. He
was living pretty large, but he wasn't necessarily aligned in
his pockets with the money. So it launched in April
eighteen sixty and the very last ride was in October
(22:08):
eighteen sixty one. By that time, the service had dwindled
down and been taken over by Wells Fargo, So it's
a pretty short ride. What did you think was the
obvious reason why the Pony Expressed didn't last very long?
If you're paying all of your writers a hundred bucks
and the average wage of that time was fifteen bucks.
(22:32):
That's you that you're paying quite a lot in um
salaries to your employees courses today and at the time
we're not cheap. So there's probably a lot of operating
budget as well that maybe like, like I don't know
who had enough money to pay the Pony Express an
outrageous amount of money to get something from A to
(22:54):
B in ten days. Yeah, and the most important thing
to get out there fast, get out there quickly was messages,
you know, important messages. So he mentioned at the beginning,
well it was like text messaging. But in eighteen sixty
so the invention, of course of the telegraph had made
(23:14):
messaging long distances quite easier for many years. Yeah, so
that was the But see that there was no transcontinental
telegraph um before the Pony Express. They were building that
when the Pony Express was an operation. Had the Pony
Express started maybe even ten years earlier, they would have
(23:36):
had a flourishing business because that would be the only
way to get a message across quickly. But it's like
you start your business and then suddenly a year later
the telegraph surprise and they're like, yeah, man, Like it
just so happens that that that first transcontinental telegraph between
the East and the West coast was completed in October
(23:59):
eighteen sixty one, and so a couple of days before
the last Pony Express, right, So yeah, before the Transcontinental Telegraph,
over thirty five thousand letters were delivered by the Pony Express.
So it was really vital for that year and a
half to connect California with the rest of the United States.
(24:21):
But there are definitely other reasons why we still think
about the Pony Express today. There's kind of this romance
of the West that the Pony Express really embodies. Even
doing the research on the Pony expresses so many cool stories.
The truth is a lot of the stories are not true.
But you know what, that's really part of the attraction.
(24:43):
I mean, the stories that we tell ourselves are supposed
to be entertaining, and they also remind us of what
our bed rock principles are. You know, we can persevere
against hard times, whether it's lizards or tornadoes, or the
hot sun in the desert, or viruses that killed hundreds
(25:04):
of thousands of people. We can persevere. And that's one
of the things that the Pony Express reminds us of
that is really cool. I mean, I I can't. I'm
trying to picture what it would be like to be
on the receiving end of a letter from the Pony Express.
You think about what that message had to go through
(25:25):
to get to you. You know, it traveled on horseback
for almost two thousand miles, multiple people relaying, crossing over
vast expanses of like nothing. It's crossed over the Sierra Mountains,
whereas today you get a package from Amazon, you get
a package from you know, and it's like from China.
(25:45):
It's like, but it wrote a boat and then it
got on plane and then it got out of truck
and here it. I know this sounds a little cliche,
but like it kind of symbolizes part of this individualism
that has been pervasive in American culture since the early
days of of the country. Few occupations are as individualistic
(26:06):
as Pony Express writers. I would think they are out
there on their own. Oh yeah, it's not like your
boss can even check in with you. So they were drinking,
Let's sure they were. Probably they were probably drinking and
cussing and the whole thing. Thanks to our expert who's
a number one New York Times best selling author. By
(26:26):
the way, Jim D. Police who wrote the book West
Like Lightning, and tell us what you think about this episode. Also,
if any of you have ridden a horse for like
twelve hours at a time, let us know how it
felt and what it did to your butt. Don't get
graphic or anything. Come on let us know on Twitter
at Job Salete Pod. Also rate and review us. Job
(26:49):
Salete is produced for I Heart Radio by Zealots manufacturing
hand Forge Podcast for You. It's hosted by us Helen
Hong That's Me and Matt That's Me. The show was
conceived and produced by Steve Za Markey, Anthony Savini, and
Jason Elliott. Our editor is Tommy Nichol, Our researcher is
(27:09):
Amelia Paulka, our production coordinator is Angie Hymes, and theme
music is by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. A special thanks
to our I Heart Radio team, Katrina Norvelle, Nikki Etre,
Ali Cantor, Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson, Connell Byrne and Bob Pittman.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.