What was the Pony Express?

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com! Join your hosts, Mira and Finn, as we travel back in time to the wild year of 1860! Before airplanes, cars, or even the internet, how did people get their mail across the vast, wild American frontier? Enter the Pony Express! It was the wildest, fastest mail delivery service ever created!

Imagine galloping on horseback across 2,000 miles of rugged terrain in just 10 days! These courageous riders had to brave deadly rattlesnakes, freezing blizzards, and even sneaky bandits along the way. Did you know the youngest rider was only 11 years old? That's right, kids your age were riding at top speed! To keep the mail moving day and night, there were relay stations set up every 10 miles with fresh, fast horses waiting.

But here is the craziest part: this incredible mail system only lasted for 18 months! What happened? A brand new invention called the telegraph made it completely obsolete! Saddle up and get ready for a thrilling historical adventure full of galloping hooves and wild west excitement! Let's ride!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Hey Finn, close your eyes and imagine this. You're just eleven years old. You've been given a fast horse, a revolver, and a locked leather bag stuffed with important mail.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Wait, me? I'm only seven. But eleven is still just a kid. I'm not even allowed to walk to the grocery store by myself.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Exactly! But in this job, your boss tells you to gallop at top speed through pitch black darkness, raging blizzards, freezing rivers, and territories swarming with wolves and bandits.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

What? No way! I'd drop the mail, turn around, and run straight home to my cosy bed.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

You couldn't! Because you're a crucial part of the wildest, most dangerous and most famous mail delivery service in American history. Ooh! What is it? Is it a secret spy agency? Not quite. It's crazy to think that just last month marked the anniversary of when this wild adventure began in April 1860. Today we are diving into the incredible story of the Pony Express.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

The Pony Express? Is that a really fast train that was pulled by giant ponies?

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Not a train. It was an epic, countrywide relay race of brave young riders. These kids were carrying mail across 2,000 miles of the wild American frontier in just 10 days.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

2,000 miles in 10 days? Without a car or an aeroplane? That's impossible.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

It sounds impossible, but they did it! Grab your cowboy hat, because we're riding straight into the story. To really understand how crazy the Pony Express was, we have to travel back in time to the year 1860.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Let me guess. No internet, no cell phones, and no text messages, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Right! And no aeroplanes or transcontinental railroads yet either. If you lived in New York and wanted to send a letter to your family in California, you only had a couple of slow options. You could put it on a ship that sailed all the way down around the bottom of South America, or load it onto a bumpy wooden stagecoach. How long did those trips take? A couple of weeks. Way longer. Ships took three to six months, and stagecoaches took over three weeks.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Oh, six months? If I invited you to my birthday party, you wouldn't even get the invitation until half a year later. The cake would be completely stale.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Exactly. But in 1860, California was absolutely booming because of the gold rush. Hundreds of thousands of people were moving west, and they needed news from the East Coast fast. They couldn't wait six months. So what did they do? Three wealthy businessmen named William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Wardell came up with a completely crazy idea. The Pony Express! Yes! Their master plan was to deliver mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, all the way to Sacramento, California in a guaranteed 10 days. Where exactly is that? How far of a distance are we talking? It is exactly 1,966 miles. The route crossed vast grassy plains, scorching hot deserts and freezing snowy passes in the Rocky Mountains.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Wait, hold on. A single horse can't run 2,000 miles in 10 days. It would get so tired it would literally fall over.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

You're completely right. That's why it wasn't just one horse, it was a massive relay system. They hired crews to build about 190 relay stations across the wilderness, spaced out exactly 10 to 15 miles apart.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Oh, so it's exactly like a giant track and field relay race, but with horses.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That's the perfect way to describe it. A rider would gallop his horse 10 or 15 miles at top speed until he reached a station. Then he'd jump off, grab the mailbag, throw it onto a fresh, fully rested horse, and take off again immediately.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

How long did they have to switch from the tired horse to the fresh horse?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

The strict rule was two minutes, but most riders were so fast they did it in less than 15 seconds. Now, the Pony Express couldn't just hire anybody off the street. They needed a very specific type of rider. The ads they actually printed in the newspaper said they wanted young, skinny, wiry fellows, and they preferred orphans.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Skinny? Why did they specifically want skinny kids?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Because of gravity and speed. Every extra pound slows a running horse down, so there was a strict weight limit. Riders couldn't weigh more than 125 pounds. Kids? How young are we talking? The absolute youngest rider in the whole company was a boy named Julius Mortimer Miller, but everyone called him Broncho Charlie. He was just 11 years old. 11?

SPEAKER_01 5:30

That's only four years older than me. How did an 11-year-old even get that job?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

One day, Charlie was hanging around a station in California when an empty horse trotted in with a bloody saddle. The rider had been attacked on the trail. Eleven-year-old Charlie bravely volunteered to take the mail the rest of the way, and he actually got the official job.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

That is so terrifying. What did they carry the mail in? Did they just use a regular school backpack?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Nope. They used a very special leather blanket called a mochila. It had four locked leather pockets on the corners called cantinas. The mochila fit perfectly over the horse's saddle, and the rider actually sat right on top of it to hold it securely in place. How much mail was actually in those pockets? About£20 of letters. And it cost an absolute fortune to use the Pony Express. Originally, they charged$5 for just a half ounce of paper.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

£5? That doesn't sound like a fortune to me.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

You have to remember inflation. In 1860,$5 was like paying about$190 today just to mail one single piece of paper.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

$190? That letter better have a map to buried treasure.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

It was usually super important business contracts, bank drafts, or government news. Because the mail was so valuable, the riders were told the mail was more important than their own lives. If a horse collapsed in the middle of the desert, the rider was expected to grab the heavy mochila, put it on his own back, and walk. Did they ever get attacked?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

You mentioned that empty horse with the bloody saddle.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Oh, all the time. The trail was incredibly dangerous. There were rattlesnakes, sudden blizzards, freezing rivers, and bandits. But the most legendary ride of all happened in May 1860 by a 20-year-old rider named Robert Haslam, who everyone called Pony Bob. Pony Bob! What a great nickname! What happened to him? Pony Bob famously carried President Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address during a separate ride in March 1861. But on this earlier ride, he arrived at his assigned station in Nevada, and his relief rider was completely terrified and refused to take the mail. Terrified of what? Was there a ghost? No, real danger. The Paiute Native American tribe was defending their land from settlers, and a war had broken out. They were actively attacking the relay stations, but the mail had to keep moving. So Pony Bob bravely jumped on a fresh horse and just kept riding. Wait, he just kept going? Didn't he need to sleep? Nope. He rode 190 miles straight, rested for just nine hours at a safe station, and then turned right around to ride all the way back with the westbound male. That's huge!

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Did he make it back safe without seeing any fighters?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Well, on his way back, he found one of the relay stations completely burned down, and the horses had been stolen. Suddenly, he was chased by a group of warriors on horseback. Oh no! What did he do? Did he have to fight them? He safely galloped through a narrow rocky ravine to escape, but the trail was so dangerous that on a completely separate ride, he was actually injured by a flying arrow during a chase. Ouch! Did he finally stop? Not Pony Bob. Even though he was hurt, he bravely bandaged his injury right there on the trail and kept riding. And on that famous sleepless trip, he rode 380 miles in under 40 hours. It remains the longest continuous round-trip ride in Pony Express history.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

That's like driving across a whole entire state, but on a bouncing horse with almost no sleep. Pony Bob is an absolute superhero.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

He really was a hero. The Pony Express riders were treated like massive celebrities back then. When they galloped into towns, crowds would line the streets and cheer like they were sports stars. But Finn, do you want to guess how long the entire Pony Express company actually lasted?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Hmm, it was so famous and important. Maybe it lasted fifty years? Try 18 months. 18 months? That's barely a year and a half. Why did such a famous company stop so fast? Two words. The telegraph.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

While the young riders were risking their lives racing across the plains, construction crews were putting up wooden poles and stringing in iron wire all the way across the country.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Oh! The telegraph sent electrical messages, right? Like beep beep beep.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Exactly! It used Morse code. On October 24th, 1861, the Transcontinental Telegraph line was finally connected. Suddenly, you could send a message from New York to California in a matter of seconds, instead of ten whole days.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Aww, so the brave ponies and kids lost their jobs to a metal wire.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Yep, the Pony Express became instantly obsolete and went totally bankrupt. The founders lost about$200,000, which was a massive, life-rimining fortune back then.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

That's pretty sad. But it's time for some fun facts, right? I need something funny after that.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

You bet! Here's a wild fact about their gear. To keep weight down, they packed almost nothing. But they did carry a water sack, because galloping through the scorching Nevada desert meant swallowing tons of hot, dry dust all day. Swallowing hot dry dust?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I get super thirsty just playing tag in the yard for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Me too! And to keep them disciplined, the company founders made every single rider swear a strict oath. They had to promise not to swear, not to fight, and not to drink alcohol. They even handed every rider a special, pocket-sized Bible when they were hired.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

A pocket Bible and dodging arrows. Those Pony Express riders really were the toughest kids in American history.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Alright, Finn, quiz time! Let's see how much you remember about the wildest ride in history. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Okay, my brain is all saddled up. I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

First question. What was the special locked leather bag called that the riders used to carry the mail? Next one, and this is about the distance. How many miles was the total Pony Express route from Missouri to California? Question three. Do you remember the name of the youngest rider who was just 11 years old? Alright, here's number four. What new electrical invention put the Pony Express out of business after just 18 months? Last question. Which famous rider completed that legendary 380-mile continuous round trip ride? Great job! Let's go through the answers and see how many you got right. The first answer is the Mochila. It had four locked pockets called cantinas. For question two, it was nearly 2,000 miles. Exactly 1,966 miles across the wild frontier. Number three, the answer is Julius Mortimer Miller, better known as Bronco Charlie. Question 4. The telegraph. It sent messages in seconds using Morse code instead of horses. And the final answer is Robert Haslam, also known as the legendary Pony Bob.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Wow! I still can't believe kids not much older than me were riding through blizzards and dodging arrows in the dark.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

I know, it really puts things in perspective. Next time you complain about having to walk down the driveway to check the mailbox, just remember 11-year-old Bronco Charlie.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

No way, I'm never complaining about the mail again. From now on, I'm just going to sprint to the mailbox and pretend I'm galloping on a pony.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

That's the spirit. If you guys loved learning about the wild rides of the Pony Express today, please leave us a five-star review.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, just scroll down on your podcast app and tap the five stars. It really helps us out, and it's much easier than riding a horse for 2,000 miles.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Oh, and don't forget to check out our site, kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games, cool history activities, and so much more to explore there.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

And if you want a shout out on the show or just want to say hi, email us at hello at kidopoly.com. I really want to know if you think you'd be brave enough to ride for the Pony Express.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

That would be awesome to hear from you all. Thanks so much for listening and exploring history with us today. Bye guys, keep galloping. See you next time on History's Not Boring!