Today I have a little American history lesson for you about something called the Pony Express. The Pony Express is piece of American history that most Americans learned about at some point in school.  It is also the subject of a number of movies about “the wild west” of the United States.

The Pony Express was a mail delivery service that took messages and letters from Missouri to California on horseback. (Even though the mail system was called the Pony Express, no ponies were ever used. Ponies are very small horses. Only large/normal sized horses were used in the Pony Express.) The reason this mail delivery service was called the Pony Express was because the mail was delivered very fast, which made it express.  It only took 10 days for mail to go from the beginning of the route in St. Joseph, Missouri to the route’s end in Sacramento, California.  I know that sounds like a long time now, but back in the 1860’s that was pretty fast, especially considering there were no trains that went all the way across the United States, so mail usually had to travel in horse drawn wagons.

So, how did this fast moving mail service work? There were two key components: the riders (men riding horses with bags of mail) and the stations (the different locations the riders went to in order to pick up and drop off mail, change horses, and rest). There were 184 different stations along the Pony Express. The stations and station keepers (those who worked just at the stations) were essential to the successful, timely delivery of the mail. The riders of the Pony Express were the heroes and legends of the Pony Express though.  There are many stories told about these brave and adventurous men, who rode through parts of the country with rough weather, difficult terrain, desolate landscape, and places where Native Americans were hostile to the riders. Riders on the Pony Express worked hard, riding as fast as they could for 75 miles (120 km) before stopping, and letting the next rider take over.  The riders changed their horses about every 10-12 miles (16-19 km) at stations. They rode a regular route, so there was little danger of getting lost, but there were a lot of other dangers of course. The riders even rode at night! The mail didn’t stop moving from morning until night until it reached its destination – that is how it went so quickly across the country after all.

Below is short video about the Pony Express, which you can watch to find out more about this interesting time in American history. If you watch the video you will also learn why the Pony Express lasted only 2 short years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1R-GeEd95c