The headline: "The Pony Express," Deseret News, April 11, 1860.
News-hungry Utahns, separated by hundreds of miles from population centers both east and west, were excited. They had prospects of getting communications in "less than ten days," thanks to the indomitable boys of the Pony Express.
Howard Egan, the first Express rider from the West, left Sacramento, Calif., at midnight April 3 and arrived in Salt Lake City at 11:45 p.m. April 7, "inside the prospectus time," the newspaper reported. "The roads were heavy and the weather stormy. The last 75 miles was made in five hours, 15 minutes in a heavy rain."
On April 9, the Express from the East arrived, having left St. Joseph, Mo., at 6:30 p.m. on April 3 amid an initiation celebration. Riders bore news of the pending defection of the Southern states from the Union and the imminence of Civil War.
The hard-riding couriers of the Pony Express brought Utah to within six days of the Pacific Coast and seven of the Atlantic "a result
which we Utonians, accustomed to receive news three months afterdate, can well appreciate," the News said.
Before the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell conceived of the Pony Express, Utah had depended on the "Jackass Mail" to carry messages to Sacramento and thence to other parts of the country. Several attempts had been made to establish regular stage service from San Francisco to Salt Lake City and then east to St. Joseph, but time and distance were formidable barriers that drove costs unmanageably high.
The Jackass Mail, run by Maj. George Chorpenning and his partner, Capt. Absolom Woodward, was the best possible alternative. Ideally, mule trains made the trip to Sacramento and back once each month. Often the trips took longer.
The partners received $14,000 a year from the federal government. It was money well-earned. On one trip, the couriers lost 13 mules and a horse to freezing in a single night at Deep Creek. The men carried the mail on their backs the remaining 150 miles to Salt Lake City in a foot of snow, an account says.
In November 1851, when Woodward and his crew failed to show up in Salt Lake City as scheduled, it was apparent they had met some serious problem. The bodies of four riders were discovered near Shortcut (Dugway) Pass on Utah's western desert, sprouting flint-tipped arrows of Goshute Indian design.
But Woodward's body was missing, as was $5,000 to $10,000 in gold he was carrying to purchase mules, horses and sheep in Salt Lake City. Over the years, several theories evolved about the mail carrier's disappearance.
More than 100 years later, in the fall of 1955, Salt Lake hunter Lloyd Butcher and his son, Ray, found a skeleton and a badly corroded pistol near Johnston's Pass, west of St. Johns, Tooele County. The discovery seemed to confirm speculation that Woodward had been badly wounded in the attack but escaped Indian pursuers in a snowstorm, only to die before reaching safety.
The Pony Epxress was viewed as a step forward in meeting the demand for postal service in Utah, Oregon, California and other rapidly filling sections of the nation. But it was always expected to be temporary. Roads, telegraph lines and rail routes that would link Western settlements to the rest of the country already were under construction.
Pony riders were a breed apart, primarily teenagers who met the requirements of an ad for "young skinny wiry fellows, not afraid of danger and preferably orphans." The average age was 19, but there was at least one rider of 13. Buffalo Bill Cody was 15 when he signed on. He was credited with the longest ride ever made - 322 miles through dangerous territory.
Riders signed a pledge to avoid liquor and to abide by company rules, and each received a specially engraved Bible in return. The pay for braving Indians, weather and the dangers was $50 per month.
Initially, people with a letter to post paid $5 per half ounce - good reason to use onion-skin thin paper and write tersely. The rate was later reduced to $2 per half ounce.
Results were not always satisfactory. An 1861 Deseret News story complains of mail arriving in bad condition, thoroughly saturated with water.
"Such occurrences may be unavoidable, but we are of the opinion that, if proper care were taken . . . there would be less cause for complaint about wet and damaged mails," the writer noted - no doubt from the comfort of his warm, dry office.
Utah made its own contributions to the complement of 200 Pony Express riders, including Elijah Nicholas Wilson. He had grown up herding sheep in the western desert outside Grantsville. He befriended several Goshute Indians, including a young man named Pantsuk, and later spent several years among the Shoshone Indians, following them on seasonal migrations throughout the Great Basin area. He was adopted by Shoshone Chief Washakie and was called "Yagaik" - the "crier," because he could mimic crying Indian babies.
Hired as a Pony Express rider, he shared the common lot, dodging Indians and groundhog burrows and putting up with snow, cold and heat to get the mail through. On one occasion, he was shot by an arrow that left a near-fatal wound a couple of inches above his left eye.
With the demise of the Express, he became an Overland Stage driver and a freighter in Utah and Nevada. Then he turned to fur trapping, often in partnership with Indians. He was an early settler of the Jackson Hole, Wyo., area and founded the town of Wilson.
The Pony Express route entered Utah roughly in the corner where the state meets Wyoming, and 24 stations were strung across the state at about 10-mile intervals to support the riders. Whipping across country as fast as possible, each rider had two minutes to change horses and be on his way again. At first, little horns alerted station personnel that a rider was on his way in, but they were dropped for the famed "coyote yell" that became the standard announcement. On average, riders covered 190 miles per day in relays.
The fastest run made was seven days, 17 hours from St. Joseph to Sacramento. Riders carried Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address and the vain hope that civil strife could be avoided.
The Pony Express was short-lived. On Oct. 20, 1861, the last telegraph pole linking East and West was set in downtown Salt Lake City. Six days later, the lines themselves were joined and the pony service pre-emptorily ended, although the last letters dribbled in for a time.
In its 18 frenetic months, the Pony Express had made 308 runs covering a total of 616,000 miles. Riders carried 34,753 letters, and only one "mochila" or pouch was lost. Estimated receipts were $91,404, the bulk of it from people in the West who welcomed the opportunity to communicate with the more settled parts of the country.