The Cordova daily times., 1923-02-19
WILL RE-ENACT OLD DAYS OF
 CALIFORNIA

while the weatherbeaten Concord coach of the fabled West will roll once more between the Missouri River and the Great Salt Lake in the celebra!lon planned by the Mark Twain Memorial Association of Ne vada late this year to commemor. ate the western career of the great humorisr, according to the celebra- tion official here.
 It is hoped in some quarters to link the Mark Twain observance with the development of work along the Victory Highway, the "Main Street of America" and the proposed Por- tola fete in San Francisco, making a triune celebration that would take in vast territory from St. Joseph, Mo-, to the Pacific Oceon.
 The old settler will doubtless rub his eyes when he sees Pony Express riders speeding once more along the benches of the Sweet water. famed Wyoming stream. It is planned to make his return merely continued chapter of his past. One more he will try to beat the sunset gun into Fort Laramie and the old plains out post, Fort Bridger. These guns have been silent for decades. Although he will have to build no more willow roads along the brief deltas he will hit the old trails of the Piute lands beyond the Carson, and the Cherokee and the north.
 He will traverse the same old al kali wastes where his predecessors threw up a nasty fort against the encroaching redmen in the Sink of Mt. Carson. He will cross Sand Springs, where another fort was raised. Further on he will see where the Cold Springs station of the Ex- press was wiped out by the ever wig liant Piute enemy. Traversing the old trail across Wyoming, he will see where "Pony Bob" Haslam, one of the greatest of all the riders, made his memorable dash through Sioux and Cherokee infested lands as he gazed upon the bleaching bodies of ninety Chinamen that had fallen vic- tim to the spear and the tomahaWk
 However, he will not see the rider of the relay ahead murdered by the side of the trail, nor will he have to hunt for the still, stark body of the rider behind, as he had to do many times in the past. He will exchange greetings with his fellow rider going west but there will be many more to greet him now. The automobile and the railroad cross the old trail at many points.
 The Pony Express of the old days was intended to take off where the telegraph line ended at St. Joseph, and link the Far West, as far as was within it's power to do so, with the busy wire. It continued for numher of years until Edward Creigh- ton stretched his telegraph wire to Salt Lake City from St. Joseph ln 1S61, thereby winning a Government bonus of $4O,O0O, and the California Telegraph Company continued the line to San Francisco.
 Thereafter the Pony Express, tits occupation gone" became another Of the romantic wraiths of the Far West.
 The riders of the old Pony Ex- press, 200 or more, were all small wiry specimens of manhood, re" weighing more than 12O pounds. Their mounts were the durable half breed California mustang. Light weight and speed were the very bone and blood of the Pyon Express Ser vice. The riders pouch could not weigh more than twenty pounds, therefore every letter had to be writ ten on tissue paper. The thinner the tissue the better. A NeW 1orh newspaper and San Francisco news paper once decided they wanted to send a special edition by the Ex- press. They did, but every paper was printed on the lightest kind of tissue.
 Postage for each letter cost $5 and the record shows that love let ters were few and far between.
 The relays rode at the rate of 250 miles a day. President Buchannan's last message was brought from Mis- souri to Sacramento, more than 2,OO0 miles, in eight days, through all kinds of hazards from thirty-foot snowdrifts to night-stalking Pawnees. The relays were from twenty to twenty-five miles each, and the riders -rxoua ,,,;d e,o,, c1on +o c10E , p,optb