They provided the fastest most efficient way to get mail to the west coast. They had a wonderful thriving business for all of about a year and a half, before they went bankrupt. The telegraph was responsible for their premature demise. Gophers were also doomed to a premature death by the invention of the World Wide Web. However, unlike the Pony Express, Gophers are still hanging around and are work a look.
Gopher offers a menu driven way of searching the net.
Instead of seeing cryptic directory and file names that mean little or nothing, the user sees a hierarchical menu with topics and descriptive file headings. They are great ways to explore net resources. You just go to a menu and make a choice. Gophers are an easy way for the novice or the expert to gather information. In fact they are responsible for the first big explosion of Internet users.