Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express

Ranked among the most remarkable exploits to come out of the American West was the Pony Express. During its brief 19 1/2 months of operation (April 1860 to November 1861), the Pony Express delivered mail and news between St. Joseph, Mo., and San Francisco, Calif. 

One of the 157 Pony Express riders was Col. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. 

At age 14, he was employed as a Pony Express rider, one of the youngest on the line. After some months of employment, he was transferred to the Slade Division in Wyoming where he made the longest non-stop ride - from Red Buttes Station to Rocky Ridge Station and back - when he found that his relief rider had been killed. The distance of 322 miles over one of the most dangerous portions of the entire trail was completed in 21 hours and 40 minutes using 21 horses. 

Cody later went on to become a soldier, buffalo hunter and owner of the Wild West Show. He earned his nickname "Buffalo Bill" as an efficient and skillful buffalo hunter providing meat for workers on the transcontinental railroad. 

He was one of the greatest showmen of his day, bringing the thrill of America's Wild West to the world.

Saturday, June 19, you will see a reenactment of a Pony Express relay ride when riders relay an important proclamation to the Historic Sheridan Inn.

News of the Pony Express

Leavenworth Daily Times
February 10, 1860

WANTED
TWO HUNDRED GREY MARES, from four to seven years old, not to exceed 15 hands high, well broke to the saddle, and Warranted Sound, with black hoofs, and suitable for running the "Overland Pony Express."

Rocky Mountain News
March 4, 1860

B.F. Ficklin, general road agent of the California Overland and Pike's Peak Express Co., paid our city a visit a few days since; received the effects of the old L. & P. P. Co., on the 1st inst. and on the same day departed over the road. He is rapidly perfecting arrangements for the Pony Express and for increasing the service on the present line.

Sacramento Daily Union
March 19, 1860  

MEN WANTED! 
The undersigned wishes to hire ten or a dozen men, familiar with the management of horses, as hostlers, or riders on the Overland Express Route via Salt Lake City. Wages $50 per month and found. I may be found at the St. George Hotel during Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

WILLIAM W. FINNEY

Evening Bulletin
San Francisco, Tuesday Evening, April 3, 1860

From 1 o'clock till the hour of our going to press, a clean-limbed, hardy little nankeen-colored pony stood at the door of the Alta Telegraph Company's office--the pioneer pony of the famous express which today begins its first trip across the continent. The Little Fellow looked all unaware of his famous future.

Two little flags adorned his head-stall. From the pommel of his saddle hung, on each side, a bag lettered "Overland Pony Express." The broad saddle, wooden stirrups, immense flappers to guard the rider's feet, and the girth that knows no buckle, were of the sort customary in California for swift horsemen who appreciate mud.

Readers who get early copies of the Bulletin may see the pony that will figure in Congressional debates, in the newspapers and in history, still standing at the Telegraph office door. At a 1/4 to 4 he takes up his line of march to the Sacramento Boat. Personally he will make short work, and probably be back tonight; but by proxy he will put the west behind his heel, like a very Puck, and be in at New York in 13 days from this writing.

At 3 o'clock the letters he had to carry numbered 53; probably his whole cargo will be 75 or 80 letters, at $5 each. [Webmaster's note: By the end of the Pony Express, the price had dropped to $1.00 per 1/2 ounce.] Those which use both pony and telegraph expect to be landed in New York in nine days after quitting San Francisco.

The Weekly West
St. Joseph, Missouri, Saturday Morning, April 7, 1860

THE GREATEST ENTERPRISE OF MODERN TIMES!!
At a quarter past seven o'clock, last evening, the mail was placed by M. Jeff. Thompson, on the back of the animal, a fine bay mare, who is to run the first stage of the great through Express from St. Joseph to her sister cites of the Pacific shore. Horse and rider started off amid the loud and continuous cheers of the assembled multitude, all anxious to witness every particular of the inauguration of this greatest enterprise which it has as yet become duty, as a public journalist, to chronicle. The rider is a Mr. Richardson, formerly a sailor, and a man accustomed to every description of hardship, having sailed for years amid the snows and icebergs of the Northern ocean. He was to ride last night the first stage of forty miles, changing horses once, in five hours; and before this paragraph meets the eyes of our readers, the various dispatches contained in the saddlebags, which left here at dark last evening, will have reached the town of Marysville, on the Big Blue, one hundred and twelve miles distant-an enterprise never before accomplished even in this proverbially fast portion of the country.

Previous to the starting of the mail, and while the crowd were anxiously waiting, brief and appropriate addresses were delivered by Mssrs. Majors of the Express Company, Mayor M. Jeff. Thompson, and others, setting fourth the advantages to be derived by the country generally and our city in particular, from this magnificent undertaking, characteristic of the energy and enterprise of those representative men of the great West, Messrs. Majors, Russell, Waddell & Jones. This is but a precursor as Mr. Majors justly remarked, of another, a more important, and greater enterprise, which must soon reach its culmination, viz: the construction of the road upon which the tireless iron horse will start on his long overland journey, opening up as he goes the rich meadows of nature, the fertile valleys, and crowning the eminences of the rocky range with evidence of civilization and man's irresistible mania of progression; diversifying the prairies with lowing cattle herds, and making them lovelier by the dwellings of the pioneer, cheered in his western pilgrimage by the loved ones of his household, and aided by the fair hands and bright eyes of woman. Of a truth "the desert shall blossom as the rose".

The messenger from New York with the through dispatches, left that city on Saturday morning; but was detained twenty-four hours in Detroit, reaching this city at five o'clock last evening, via the Palmyra Branch and Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, making the distance from the Mississippi to the Missouri in the unprecedented time of four hours and fifty one minutes, including stoppages. The train consisted only of only the engine and one passenger car, running something over forty miles an hour, the distance being stated as two hundred and eight miles. This we may venture to assert, is better time than has ever before been made on a Western railroad, at all events.

The extension of the St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Salt Lake telegraph line will further facilitate this undertaking, bringing us even nearer our brethren to the west of the Sierra Nevada, until, at no far distant day, we shall have a continuous electric chain from one Ocean to the other. And the transmission of intelligence will be almost instantaneous. A proud era it will be for journalism, when the papers of the southern and eastern cities are enabled to publish important events of the Golden State simultaneously with its own journals; and when we here on the banks of the Missouri, intermediate, will made aware of the fluctuations of the markets, lucky strikes in the mines, and of disastrous fires ere the ruins have ceased to smoke.

The Eastward express, we understand, will leave San Francisco today, and we will expect its arrival in twelve days at furthest. We shall regard the arrival of this express as by far the most important event which has occurred since the settlement of our city, and would suggest that a suitable and appropriate demonstration be gotten up to testify our appreciation of the enterprise which has conceived and this far successfully carried out the undertaking.

The Deseret News
Great Salt Lake City, Wednesday, April 11, 1860

The Pony Express
The first Pony Express from the west left Sacramento City, Cal., at 12 p.m., on the night of the 3rd inst., and arrived in this city at 11:45 p.m. of the 7th, inside of prospectus time. The roads were heavy and the weather stormy. The last 75 miles was made in 5 hours, 15 minutes, in a heavy rain.

The express from the east left St. Joseph, Missouri, at 6:30 p.m., on the evening of the 3rd and arrived in this city at 6:25 p.m., on the evening of the 9th. The difference in time between St Joseph and this city is something near 1 hour and 15 minutes, bringing us with-in six days communication with the frontier, and seven days from Washington - a result which we Utonians, accustomed to receive news three months after date, can well appreciate.

Much credit is due the enterprising and persevering originators of the enterprise and although a telegraph is very desirable, we feel well satisfied with this achievement for the present.

The weather has been disagreeable and stormy for the past week and in every way calculated to retard the operations of the company, and we are informed the express eastward from this place was five hours in going to Snyder's Mill, a distance of five miles.

We are indebted to Mr. W. H. Russell for a copy of the St Joseph Daily Gazette, printed expressly for Utah and California with dates from Washington and New York to the evening of the 2nd, and from St Joseph to 6 p.m. of the 3rd instant.

The probability is, the express will be a little behind time in reaching Sacramento this trip, but when the weather becomes settled, and the roads good, we have no doubt they will be able to make the trip in less than ten days.

San Francisco Evening Bulletin
April 23, 1860

Carson City, U.T., April 22, 1860
The Overland Pony Express from St. Joseph, Missouri, arrived here at 4:10 this morning, with dates from St. Louis to the 12th inst. The Express was detained six hours at Robert's Creek, by reason of the horses having been driven off by the Indians.

THE DAILY BEE
Sacramento, Tuesday Evening, August 21, 1860

The Indian Disturbances on the Pony Route
A telegram to the Union says that on August 11th about two hundred Indians came to the station at Eagan's Canon, and demanded some powder and lead of the men in charge of the station, which they refused to let them have. They then wanted some provisions, and the men gave them two sacks of flour and some sugar and coffee. One of the men then started out after the animals kept at that place, when the Indians told them that he could not go, and that they would take care of the animals themselves, and commenced singing and hallooing at a great rate.

At that instant, Lieutenant Weed, with twenty-five soldiers, came up and attacked the Indians, who returned the fire, wounding three men, including Corporal Kitchell, who it was thought would recover, but the other two .men were seriously injured, and. their recovery was considered doubtful. The Indians fled without driving off any of the stock. About the same time, six or eight Indians went to where some men were mowing, near Deep Creek, and ordered them away, but went off without molesting them further. They came back next morning, when four soldiers, who had secreted themselves in a wagon, fired on them, wounding two mortally. The others fled.

At about six o'clock on the morning of the 12th, the next day after the attack at Eagan's Canon, the Indians made, an attack on Shell Creek Station. The first intimation that the men had of the proximity of the Indians was a shower of balls flying about them, but fortunately no one was killed or wounded. They instantly took shelter in the house.

There were two parties of Indians, one of which surrounded the house, crawling up as near as they could, without being seen, and kept up an incessant fire for almost an hour without wounding any of the men, but they had the mortification of seeing their stock driven off without any means of preventing it. Fortunately, in about an hour after the attack commenced, Lieutenant Weed arrived from Ruby Valley, and attacked the Indians killing seventeen of them and wounding many others, and thus relieving the men from their perilous position. The same day there were four other Indians killed on Shell Creek Canon by three soldiers who came in from Round Valley with the western express.

Daily Evening News (Denver)
Nov. 30, 1860

THE PONY ON HIS WAY TO CALIFORNIA
The Extra Pony which left Fort Kearney on Wednesday, November 7th with the election news, arrived at Salt Lake City in three days and 4 hours - distance, 950 miles. J. E. Bromley, company's agent, rode the last 45 miles in three hours and ten minutes. Pretty good ride for Jeems. The Regular Pony, leaving St. Joseph on the 8th inst., arrived in Salt Lake City, a distance of twelve hundred miles, in 4 days and 23 hours. It had been snowing 36 hours when the Pony left Salt Lake. - St. Joseph Gazette, Nov. 24th.

Daily Evening News (Denver)
Nov. 30, 1860

FROM EXTRA OF SUNDAY MORNING
THIS MORNING'S NEWS. (LINCOLN'S ELECTION)
Owing to misunderstanding at Ft. Kearney, the Pony dispatches that should have reached us Friday at 12 o'clock, noon, were not left at Julesburg, and are now doubtlessly far down the Humboldt on the way to California. A copy of the regular Thursday morning dispatches from St. Joseph, was duly forwarded from the Crossing (Julesburg), and reached us this morning a little after six o'clock in eighteen hours from that point.

The Western stage coach that left Kearney on Wednesday evening, got in at half-past twelve this morning, six hours ahead of the pony, and furnished its dispatches of Wednesday evening to the Mountaineer, which issued an extra quite early this morning. Our dates are to Thursday, at 9 AM from St. Joseph, being a full twelve hours later than published by our contemporary. We have taken time to canvass and compile the returns and are thus enabled - though at a rather late hour - to give our readers an intelligible report of the result. We will in tomorrow's daily give full compiled returns.

San Francisco Evening Bulletin
March 5, 1861

The Pony Express
A dispatch received today from W.C. Marley, Agent of the Pony Express at Carson City, says: "The Pony leaving San Francisco March 6th will get through to St. Louis inside scheduled time. The Pony leaving St. Joseph, March 4th, will come through Fort Churchill in about seven days, and reach San Francisco inside of nine."

We hope this nine days prediction will be verified, but the recent frequent and unnecessary delays of expresses at Sacramento is not encouraging as to the reliability of the incoming Ponies. We are today publishing for the first time, letters received at Sacramento sixty hours ago, which might have been sent to us overland on the day they were received, by an expenditure of thirty or forty dollars -- which the Bulletin itself offered to defray.

Unless there is more energy to the management of this end of the line, so that no more expresses are delayed at Sacramento, increased patronage of the Pony cannot be expected from Eastern letter writers. The Bulletin will pay half the expense of bringing the Express letters from Sacramento overland, hereafter -- whenever 24 hours delay can be prevented by doing so -- if that will spirit up the Express Company to do what they ought to do on their own account, and at their own cost. [Webmaster's note: Financially, the Pony Express was a failure, leading its founders to bankruptcy. They had spent $700,000 on the Pony Express and had a $200,000 deficit. The company failed to get the million dollar government contract because of political pressures and the outbreak of the Civil War.]