River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-07-03

waters as clear, but when the iron
wheels of progress swept over her sandy
plains and scaled her mountain tops,
there was a change. 1t is indehnable.
for all that, but still one likes to read
of the stirring times, of the times
of border hardships and excitements
and of the gradual giving away OF nature
to the hand of man. 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 re trail within his
memory wound, serpent like, from the
banks of the Missouri at this city to the
lonely Spanish settlement in New Mex
leo. One by one he saw the relics OF
earlier days slip out of existence toward
the setting sun, the railroad and the
telegraph pushed their way from the
East, and the pioneer glories of the
great West were over.
One of the last, and at the same time
the most prominent of these features of
the West before the railroads and the
telegraph came, was the pony express,
by the means of which 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 remarkable after all. Now it is. ten
seconds; but for ponies, over mountains,
plains, through storms and sun, the
work was wonderful One of the foun-
ders of the pony express system lives
~ ~ hut n
age, prominent in business and as bright
as in the days of his youth. Colonel
Alexander Majors is seventy. For years
he was a member of the firm of Russell,
Majors s. Waddell, of Leavenworth,
Kan, perhaps the most prominent
freighting house in the West in the days
before the railroads came.
1t was in 1858 that Senator Gwynn, of
California, known as Duke" Gwynn by
reason of some title conferred upon him
in Mexico, conceived the idea of trans
hitting the mails across the plains on
swiftly running ponies. Senator Gwynn,
by the by, was killed in California be-
fore the war in a duel with the famous
Frederick. Gwynn thought the coast
deserved better mail service than that
afforded by the stage coach route
through the Southern territories by way
of Los Angeles, and he went to Wash
ington with his mind full of plans for a
pony service directly across the country,
over what was known as the Central
route. He was laughed at by his col
| leagues, however, and told that an all
| the-year-rOund service across the mid
die Rocky moutains, through Colorado.
| Nevada and Utah, would be an utter
impossibility. Nothing dauntec, Sen
ator Gwynn sought Colonel Russell, who
spent a great deal of time in Washing
ton and the two worked out plan for
the service. The fact that Russell,
Majors and Waddell we're the heaviest
freighters in the West suggested that
the firm would give a good service in
the new venture Assistance from the
Government was secured and in 1859
the ponies started.
They ran across the country for nine
months" said Colonel Majors a few days
ago, never missing schedule time at
either of the terminal points. The
given time from St Joseph to Sacra-
mento was ten days, and through sun
SHINE anu SJOFIl. SHOW IIuus SdHu anu
rocks, the hardy racers pushed on to the
West, or back to the East, with the
speed of railroad train. If the ponies
lost time through bad weather over one
paat of the route, they picked it up on
another-on a journey of two thousand
miles some of the weather was bound to
be good. The most noteworthy piece of
work performed by the ponies, con-
tinued Colonel Majors, was in the de-
livering of one of President Buchanan's
messages in a few hours over eight days.
The message was received in St. Joseph
by wire, Immediately placed upon light
manifolding paper and given to the mes
senger. The pony was of like the wind.
Forty of the little fello VS. were required
to do the work and it was done TO the
queens taste. But the telegraph came
soon.'' said Colonel Ma ors, sadly, 'and
that broke the ponys Lack. Later the
railroads came and we had to stop our
wagons and close up our business.
The pony express company employed
about six hundred OF the hardy little
animals indigenous to the West Post
houses were maintained every ten