The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the North American continent from St. Joseph , Missouri , to Sacramento , California from April 1860 to October 1861. Messages were carried on horseback relay across the prairies, plains, deserts, and mountains of the Western United States . It briefly reduced the time for mail to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to around ten days.
By traveling a slightly shorter route and using mounted riders rather than stagecoaches, the founders of the Pony Express hoped to establish their service as a faster and more reliable conduit for the mail and win away the exclusive government mail contract.
The Pony Express demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system could be built and operated continuously the year around — something that had previously been regarded as impossible. Since its replacement by the First Transcontinental Telegraph and Railroad, the Pony Express has entered the romance of the American West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance of the individual riders and horses over technological innovation is part of "American rugged individualism".
Pony Express stations were placed at intervals of about 10 miles along the route, roughly the maximum distance a horse can travel at full gallop. The rider changed to a fresh horse at each station, taking only the mail pouch (called a mochila, Spanish (from Basque) for "pouch") with him. Each corner had a cantina, or pocket. The mochila could hold 20 pounds of mail along with the 20 pounds of material carried on the horse, allowing for a total of 165 pounds on the horse's back. Riders, who could not weigh over 125 pounds, were changed about every 75–100 miles. Included in that 20 pounds were: a water sac, a Bible, a knife, a horn for alerting the relay station master to prepare the next horse, a revolver, and a choice of a rifle or another revolver [citation needed]. Eventually, they took away everything except one revolver and a water sac to cut down on the weight. The riders received $100 per month as pay.
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