The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-12-16
FAMOUS PONY EXPRESS
RIDERS PASSING AWAY
REMARKABLE RECORDS MADE
BY THESE DARING MEN
OF THE OLD WEST


A recent dispatch from Los Angeles
reports that the death in that city of
William Gooding. one of the pony eX-
press riders who about the period of
the civil war carried mail and valu-
able packages from the western end
OF the railway and steamboat lines in
the Missouri valley over the Rocky
mountains to the Pacific coast Mr..
IGooding may have been. as the dis
match says. 1.-THE last of these remark
able frontier riders" The same was
said. however. OF William II. Cody at
the time of his death, says the New
York Herald Apparently there is ex-
tant no satisfactory record of the men
who were engaged in this service.
They were all young frontiersmen.
some of them scarcely more than
boys, and they rode the trail through
a new land of which the inhabitants
were mostly trappers, hunters. wild
Indians and bad whites, and which Of
fered them the adventures they Gag
/ erly sought.
Rendered Great Service.
These riders performed a valuable
and hazardous work for the nation in
thus furnishing a link in the commun-
ication between the Atlantic and the
Pacific Their lives as well as the
lives of their helpers at the stations
on the route-mOre of these helpers
than riders fell victims to Indians and
outlaws-were in constant peril The
most famous of the pony express Or
CARNATIONS was that founded by VIII
liam Russell and Alexander Majors of
ST Joseph Mo Their service con-
sisted of "A system of relay stations
about Is miles apart The fleetest
and hardest horses only were used
and each rider was expected to main
tain a speed of 20 miles an hour and
to traverse at least three of the IS
mile stages changing his mount at
each of them. Riders were, how
ever. frequently forced to make as
many as six of the stages.
Cutting Down Time.
Until the introduction of the pony
express the time required for the
transmission of letter from the
Missouri valley to the Pacific coast
was about six weeks. The news of
the firing on Fort Sumter was car
ried by pony express riders from In
dependence Mo. to Sacramento, Cal,
a distance of almost 1000 miles in 8
days and II hours. This record was
cut down a day when the riders I'M
der the stimulus of a big bonus car
ried over the same route the news of
the battle of Antietam.
Other remarkable records were
made by the carriers of messages. both
civilian and army riders in those days
west of the Missouri The Kansas
City Star says that f. X. Aubrey a
New Yorker who went to Missouri to
engage in freighting, rode in 1854
from one end of the Santa Fe trail to
the other, a distance of 500 miles. in
So days Later he had himself strap
ped on his mount so that he could
sleep in his saddle. and reduced his
former record to Az days
Speed in the Army.
Colonel Ezra b. Fuller. when a sec
ond lieutenant in the Seventh cavalry
carried a dispatch from General Miles
at Miles City on the Yellowstone, to
General Sherman at Fort Ellis. a dis
lance of $50 miles through the noun
tains, in days and 10 hours. John
Kibley carried an army dispatch at
the time of the Mormon trouble in
Utah from Salt Lake City to Fort
Leavenworth, 100 miles, in. II days,
but he was compelled to abandon the
last of his four mounts and to carry
his saddle to his destination. General
Pershing, when a first lieutenant,
made a record ride with a detach
ment of % men. covering 100 miles in
a little more than "a hours.
Mr. Gooding was the witness of
marvellous changes in transportation
that came in his lifetime. Instead of
the single line of the Pacific Tele-
graph company which put the pony
express out of business, that part OF
the country is now covered with a
network of wires Fast railway
trains now run over the route fol-
lowed by the pony express rider. The
modern trail rider travels by gaso-
line on soft cushions and instead of
depending on jerked buffalo meat and
a canteen of water has the best ac-
commodations of present day hotels.
But despite these refnements and
comforts Mr. Gooding may have
found some satisfaction in the fact
that his successors did not clip much
more than day off the pony express
riders best records.
Diess4rous Nibrations