Vast Selection of Royalty Free Images and Historical Information

Title: Pony Express

Description: A Pony Express rider leaves a relay station on a fresh mount; the Pony Express was the fast U.S. mail service that crossed the American continent, beginning at St. Joseph, Missouri and ending at Sacramento, California, from April 1860 to October 1861, the mail carried by fast-riding horseback riders in relay across the Western plains with approximately 190 Pony Express Stations placed at ten-mile intervals, the distance that a horse could travel at full gallop; riders could not weigh more than 125 pounds and usually rode between 75 to 100 miles each; they carried a knife and six guns for protection against Indians (many did not to rid themselves of this weight) but no rifles and sat atop a mochila, a mail pouch with four pockets at the ends, one before and aft of the rider on either side of the horse, each pocket carrying about twenty pounds of mail, the pouches locked for protection; Pony Express riders, who received $25 a week as pay, also carried a water sack and a horn with which to alert the next relay station of his impending arrival in order that a fresh horse would be ready upon arrival; their route took them (going West) through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada to California and back along the same areas; mail was delivered at both East and West destinations about every ten days, this service using about 500 smaller horses (ergo the word "Pony") having speed and agility; the Telegraph, faster stagecoaches and eventually the transcontinental trains replaced the Pony Express and the rugged individuals who made its brief but greatly celebrated history;

Category: American West

Keywords: American frontier, American West, American Old West, horses, Old West, Pony Express riders, Pony Express Relay Stations, U.S. Mail, The West, Western United States, Wild West