Wilmington daily commercial., 1874-08-21
The old Way Of Crossing the Plains

The most curious and perfect of all the pony |
expresses was that which used to run across the |
plains. OF course, you kJow what mean by |
the PLAINS. When l was boy, almost the whole |
country between the Mississippi river and the
Pacific ocean was called, on the maps, the great
American desert and in my geography it was
described as a wide, sandy plain. ln my mind
it WAS not unlike the desert of Sahara, with
iercer tribes inhabiting it. Schoolboys now-a-
days have better maps and Biographies, and
know this country 10y the names OF the great
states of Kansas. Nebraska, Colorado, aud
Nevada, which have been formed Of it, What
was desert to US, is prairie to you, boys what
we thought barren sand, you know to be rich
soil ; and you cross it by rail in three days,
where we, in stage-coaches, used to make the
trip in seventeen.
The Pacific Railroad killed the pony express
but III it's day the latter was great institution,
which would have put to the blush the pony ex-
press of the Russians and Tartars, or our own
| army courers. 1t was not government line,
| either private enterprise started and kept it
| going on q grand scale. 1t 'used up and "broke
| down more than thousand horses and Indian
| ponies a year. 1t employed nine or ten hundred
| couriers and coach-drivers and station-keepers,
| and more than one hundred Concord coaches.
Every day in the year one of these stages started
! from the east end and one from the west end of
the route, and often as many as fifty were max
ing the Grip at the same time. The coach sta
tions were ten miles apart, and there were more
than two hundred of them in all. The route led
from Atchson, Missouri, across the plains for
five days to Denver, Colorado then five days
more up the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City
Utah then seven days more down the moun-
tains to sacramento City, California.
| At one station the stage-coach reached q level
of five thousand feet above the plains and in
the summer months it was the custom OF the
drivers to stop there ten minutes, not for re-
, | freshments, but to allow the passengers the
= novel pleasure of snow-balling each other in
July. In these dreary mountains few persons
were then to be met, other than members oil
the family of Mr.. Grizzly Bear who, as he
happens to be hungry, is very unpleasant
fellow to travel with. On the PLAIN the
, enemy most dreaded was the red-skinned tribes
whose rowing bands almost daily attacked the
coaches. To repel such attacks, each passenger
was required to carry a rifle as part of his bag
, gage. A crack driver was one who could
drive four horses at full speed with the reins il
: his teeth and rifle in his hands. Every station
was fort, with soldiers to defend it. Often the
coaches had to be guarded from station to sta
I ton by the soldiers, who followed ON horseback
and at times the soldiers and passengers weri
forced to foftify themselves in the coach ant
fight until help came by the approach of othe
coaches Seventeen days of trip like this VIC nj,
= furnish almost enough adventure for lifetime
But it was the swift mail-courlers of this linl
who ran risks and led adventurous lives full o
c daring and danger. They ran the gauntlet o
e the Indians all alone,-at night as well as b
II day,-and rough time many of them had of ii
Their stations were twenty-five miles apart, AM
! the trips between them had to be made at flu
h gallop, and in two hours and a half, winter q
a summer, day or night over plain or mountain
, The horses were hardy Indian ponies, swift an
- sure Of foot but the service killed them yer
rapidly. The riders were old pioneers, VIII
III knew the ways of the Indians and how to avoi
ar them. Still many of them fell victims to the
:; daring and their sense of duty. The long tr
is of two thousand miles occupied the mail-carrie
x eight days at the rate Of more than ten miles
Is. hour but important election news was carrie
IA at still more rapid rate. But at length the ha
-" messed lightning and the iron horse distance
the pony on his own track, and he has gone FIJI
to ther West to pastures new-From " tn. Poi
as Efpress," in 81. Nicholas for September.