page_title: Pony Express
section_title: Inception and founding
hierarchical_section_title: Pony Express / Inception and founding
caption_attribution_description: English: Alexander Majors, one of the founders of the Pony Express
context_page_description: The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail using relays of horse-mounted riders that operated from April 3, 1860, to October 24, 1861, between Missouri and California in the United States of America.
  Operated by Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, the Pony Express was a great financial investment to the U.S. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days. Many people used the Pony Express as a communication link. It also encouraged catalogs to be created, allowing people to buy goods and have them brought by horse to the customers. It became the West's most direct means of east-west communication before the transcontinental telegraph was established, and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States.
  Despite a heavy subsidy, the Pony Express was not a financial success and went bankrupt in 18 months, when faster telegraph service was established. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round.
context_section_description: The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific Coast was prompted largely by California's newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population. After gold was discovered there in 1848, thousands of prospectors, investors, and businessmen made their way to California, at that time a new territory of the U.S. By 1850, California entered the Union as a free state. By 1860, the population had grown to 380,000. The demand for a faster way to get the mail and other communications to and from this westernmost state became even greater as the American Civil War approached.
  William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell were the three founders of the Pony Express. They were already in the freighting and drayage business. At the peak of the operations, they employed 6,000 men, owned 75,000 oxen, thousands of wagons, and warehouses, plus a sawmill, a meatpacking plant, a bank, and an insurance company.
  Russell was a prominent businessman, well respected among his peers and the community. Waddell was co-owner of the firm Morehead, Waddell & Co. After Morehead was bought out and retired, Waddell merged his company with Russell's, changing the name to Waddell & Russell. In 1855, they took on a new partner, Alexander Majors, and founded the company of Russell, Majors & Waddell. They held government contracts for delivering army supplies to the western frontier, and Russell had a similar idea for contracts with the U.S. government for fast mail delivery.
  By using a short route and mounted riders rather than traditional stagecoaches, they proposed to establish a fast mail service between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with letters delivered in 10 days, which many said was impossible. The initial price was set at $5 per ¹⁄₂ ounce (14 g), then $2.50, and by July 1861 to $1. The founders of the Pony Express hoped to win an exclusive government mail contract, but that did not come about.
  Russell, Majors, and Waddell organized and put together the Pony Express in two months in the winter of 1860. The undertaking assembled 120 riders, 184 stations, 400 horses, and several hundred personnel during January and February 1861.
  Majors was a religious man and resolved "by the help of God" to overcome all difficulties. He presented each rider with a special-edition Bible and required this oath, which they were also required to sign.
  I,  ... , do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God."
  — Oath sworn by Pony Express Riders
caption: Alexander Majors
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