Mexico weekly ledger., 1890-05-29
PONY EXPRESS DAYS.
Fast Mail in Ante.Bellum Tim,

inent Features Of the West When
Railroads and Telegraphs
We're Unknown-Fa-
nous Trip.
Homer Bassford's Correspondence to the Chi
cage Herald.
KANSAS Cry, Mo-, May 49,
A peculiar charm attaches itself to
anything which relates to the West
in ante-bellum times. It was not
the same West as now the sun is
just as bright, maybe, and the
grass and tress as green, and the
waters as clear but when the iron
wheels of progress swept over her
sandy plains and scaled her noun
tain tops there was a change. 1t
is 1ndefnable, for all that, but still
one likes to read of the stirring
times of the days of border hard
ships and excitements, and of the
gradual giving away of nature to
the hand of humanity. A man of
middle age may look back within
his memory and see the heavy,
slow freighters measuring their
squeaky way across the plains ;
the Santa Fe trail winds, serpent
like, from the banks of the Mis-
souri, at this city to the lonely
Spanish settlement in New Mexico.
One by one he see the relics OF
earlier days slip out of existence
toward the setting sun, the railroad
and the telegraph pushing their
| way from the East, and the pio'
neer glories of the great West are
over.
One of the last and at the same
time the most prominent of these
features of the West, before the
railroads came, was the pony ex'
press, by whose means messages
were carried from the Missouri
river to the Pacific coast in less
than ten days. How remarkable
it all seems now! Ten days from
the Missouri to the Golden Gate
on pony back. But it is remark
able after all. Now it is ten sec
onds, but for ponies, over noun
tains, plains, through storms and
sun, the work was wonderful. One
of the founders of the pony express
system lives in this city at ripe
but active old age, prominent il
business and as bright as in the
days of his youth. Colonel Alex
ander Majors is seventy. Fol
years he was member of the firm
of Russell, Majors & Waddell, o
Leavenworth, Kan, perhaps th'
most prominent freighting house
in the West in the days before th'
railroads came.
It was in 1858 that Senator Gwyn
of California, known as ''Duke'
Gwyn by reason of the title con
ferred upon him in Mexico, con
ceived the idea of transmitting tn,
mails across the plains on swift.
running ponies. Gwyn though
the coast deserved a better mai
| service than that afforded by tn
stage coach route through tn
southern territories by way of Lo
Angeles, and he went to Washing
ton with his mind full of plans 70
, a pony service directly across tn
country, over what was known a
, the central route. He was laughe'
: at by his colleagues, however, an
told that an all the year aroun
, service across the middle Rock
) Mountains, through Colorado, Ne
: vada and Utah, would be an ute
impossibility. Nothing daunted
T.. Senator Gwyn sought Colone
Russell, who spent great deal
his time in Washington, and tn
two men worked out a plan fo
the express. The fact that Rus
sell, Majors and Waddell wer
the heaviest freighters in the Wes
suggested that the firm would Civ
good service in the new venture
Assistance from the gevernmer
was secured and in 1859 the ponie
started.
K "They ran across the country fc
Y nine MONTHS" SAID Col. Majors
d few days ago, ''never missin
] schedule time at either of the te
: mlnal points. The gwen time frol
}. st. John to Sacramento was te
: days, and through sunshine an
8 storm, snow, mud, sand and rock
e the hardy racers pushed on to th
e West, or back to the East, with tt
speed of a railroad train. If tt
= ponies lost time through ba
weather over one part of the rou
= they picked it up on another. Q
: a journey of 1900 miles some
:, the weather was bound to be goo'
a The most noteworthy piece of wol
performed by the ponies," contil
: ued Col. Majors, ''was in the d
livering of one of President Buel
:. anan's messages in a few hours ov'
g eight days. The message was r
= celved in st. Joseph by wire, in
: mediateiy placed upon light man
, folding paper and given to the me
senger. TIE pony was off like 4
d wind. Nearly two hundred of q
% little fellows were required to {