New Britain herald., 1924-07-25
PONY EXPRESS DID
 MUCH TO WIN WEST
Glorious Days of 1860 Recalled
 by UnVellins el Tablet

l hero as fdul Revere or l.leutehhH
 Vaughan" says a bulletin from th
 Washington, D. C., headquarters q
 he National Geographic society |
 .egard to the organization to whie
 memorial tablet was recently m feiled in Salt Lake City
 "fhe name, Pony Express, raise
 faint suggestion of romance in
 'ew minds today" continues m
 sulletin. but with Maeready am
 Kelly and Maushan dying from oeea
 .o ocean in a matter Of hours; witt
 ,ur night-hying postal airmen; witl
 ,ur railway trains that cross in fou
 days: with our telegrams deliyere,
 within the hour: and able as we ar
 10 hear and recognize a voice whli'
 t is speaking 5000 miles away; tn,
 accomplishments of the fearless pos
 riders Of 65 years ago are likely to b,
 passed by as rather simple. The es
 tablishment of this weekiy-and late
 semi-weekly-service. clipping Il
 days from the mall time across thu
 continent. was. however. an accom-
 plishment of extreme importance. |
 has been credited even with keepinI
 California In the Union during ciyi
 war days.
 Nation Tied With Thongs of News
 At the time the Pony Expres,
 came Into being the accepted mai
 route to California was by steamer
 from New York to the Isthmus oi
 Panama, across the isthmus b,
 mule conveyance, and by ship from
 Panama to San Francisco-2S days
 Later the mail stage line from St.
 Louis over the Santa Fe trail, via Yuma, and thence into southern Cali fornia took letters between the two terminal cities in IS days. Beside these records the 10-day letter and s-day telegram schedules Of the Pony Express represented as great stride forward as the transcontinental train service made over existing methods nine years later.
 "The winning Of the West had ad- vanced only as far as the Missouri river in the central section of the country in 1880. Beyond lay track less prairies, rugged foothills. barrier mountains, and Indians. But farther on, beyond the Rockies, along the Pacific coast and in the Great Basin region, were half million Americans building up another section of the United States far removed from It's parent block. Railroads all ready connected the East with St. Louis to St. Joseph Missouri. The latter city. then, was the rail head of the United States and the ultimate western outpost of the ordered civil ization of the East. Beyond it few military posts and some scattered frontiersmen existed precariously among hostile Indians. The problem was to bridge this gap and tie the two United States together with the powerful thongs of news.
 Left to Private Initiative
 "'St. Jo' was also the western end of the telegraph line from the east. On the Pacific side telegraph line extended from San Francisco through Sacramento to Placerville near Lake Tahoe. News could be flashed from New York and Washington to St. Joseph, could be carried from there to Placerville by pony, and could im- mediately be wired on to San Fran cisco. This enabled the Pony Ex- press to make a two day shorter schedule for telegrams than for mail.
 Though government officials recognized the keen need for fast mail service to the west coast and though the Westerners petitioned for 1t, the bills introduced into congress for federal participation were killed. A private firm put the thing through: Russell, Majors and Waddell, owners of freighting service and predeces- sors to the big express companies that | grew up with the railroads. They organized the enterprise quietly and | surprised the nation with advertise | lnents in the spring of 1860 offering 10 carry letters to the Pacific in 10 | days. The first riders to gallop west | from St. Joseph and east from San Francisco April 3, 1860. were given and noisy sendoffs and when the relay riders came in--on schedule-ten days later both termi- nal towns suspended business and had glorious celebrations.
 Hoofs Never Idle a Minute
 What the Pony Express really did | vas to stretch telegraph line of lesh and blood from frontier to from fer and to keep 1t functioning in pite of weather, Indians and des- ,eradoes. Riders were morally by highwaymen or savages; ,ut they carried on to the next sta ion, their comrades took their places, nd the mail sped on. Horses were lao rAI &1 tations established by the service. I dders had runs" of approximately miles. At the end of his run a ider would be relieved, would sleep nd rest and would then be ready to arry the next mail in the opposite irection to his starting point. Only
 fraction of minute was required 9 change the saddle bags from one lount to another, Every minute of fight and day hoofs were pounding between St. Jo' and Trisco,' and the mail was moving at 5 fast a gallop as horse- flesh could love 1t.
 The route which the Pony Express lade famous was so well chosen that ,dsy lines of steel cover it almost xactly. Leaving St. Joseph it aralleled the present north boundary Kansas for about hundred miles, ruck across to the Platte river at it's ,uthernmost dip in Nebraska, fol- wed the South Platte valley to the resent northeast corner of Colorado. ent up the North Platte to Tt. aranlie in Wyoming and from there ossed the Rockies by South Pass i'd on to Salt Lake City. The worst ction of the route lay west of Salt Ike across the deserts and alkali aims of Utah and Nevada to Carson