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Wanted, young skinny wiry fellows

1:20

not over 18 must be expert

1:22

riders willing to risk death daily,

1:24

orphans preferred. It would probably be

1:26

the stuff of LinkedIn dreams. But

1:29

in 1860s America hundreds of wiry

1:31

young teens replied to this newspaper

1:33

ad for what they considered the

1:35

adventure of a lifetime, becoming a

1:37

rider for the Pony Express which

1:40

made its first ride today in

1:42

history in 1860. The Pony Express being...

1:44

a route to take mail through the

1:46

plains of Kansas and into Nebraska along

1:48

the valley of the Platte River across

1:51

the Great Plateau through the Rockies etc.

1:53

On actual horseback. I mean I think

1:55

until you look into it you hear the

1:57

Pony Express you think maybe that's like

1:59

a nickname. for a cargo train or

2:01

something. There was no train that's why

2:04

they had to have this. If you

2:06

wanted to send a letter from Missouri

2:08

to California... in this year, 1860, 1861,

2:10

it was delivered by one of those

2:12

teenagers on the back of horse. Yeah,

2:15

it's astonishing. You know, this was a

2:17

time before radios and telephones, obviously, and

2:19

California, which achieved statehood in 1850, was

2:21

still pretty much cut off from the

2:23

eastern side of the country. So if

2:26

you wanted to send a letter from

2:28

New York to the west coast, well,

2:30

it went by ship, and that typically

2:32

took at least a month, or you

2:35

could send it by stagecoach on the

2:37

recent... established Butterfield Express Overland route which

2:39

would take between three weeks and a

2:41

few months to arrive. So the idea

2:43

that you could send mail across the

2:46

country and it would only take 10

2:48

days was really revolutionary for the time.

2:50

And that was possible due to an

2:52

extremely carefully calibrated system. Pony Express stations,

2:54

known as relays, were posted every 10

2:57

or so miles along the route. The

2:59

route was like 2,000 miles. You know,

3:01

this was so that the riders could

3:03

swap horses. The horses themselves were chosen

3:05

because they were small and fast. The

3:08

riders could not weigh more than 125

3:10

pounds. In addition to the Machila, the

3:12

leather mail bag they carry, that contained

3:14

about nine kilos of mail. They took

3:17

a water sack and a revolver only

3:19

to be used as a last resort.

3:21

And this was the only official equipment

3:23

they were expected to carry because they

3:25

had to be as lightweight as possible.

3:28

Yeah, and the letters themselves that they

3:30

were delivering had to be written on

3:32

fine tissue paper to keep them light

3:34

as well and wrapped in oil silk

3:36

to protect them from moisture. We've talked

3:39

about the debut of the postcard on

3:41

this show previously, which was six years

3:43

later, and it really helps put that

3:45

moment in time, doesn't it? Because you

3:48

understand why people didn't write trivial stuff.

3:50

all that effort is being put into

3:52

delivering your letter. You're not going to

3:54

write a short message, are you, about

3:56

something glib? You're going to actually say

3:59

something. Yeah, I think that's part of

4:01

why the service was a little bit

4:03

dead in the water even when it...

4:05

you really couldn't be just writing the

4:07

odd missive to your friend. The service

4:10

itself cost $5 for every half ounce

4:12

of mail, which is the equivalent of

4:14

about $130 today. So, you know, this

4:16

was really, really expensive. They did later

4:18

reduce the price to just a dollar,

4:21

but they still remained way too high

4:23

for people to be able to use

4:25

if they were just sending everyday mail.

4:27

So instead, this was a route that

4:30

tended to deliver important news or government

4:32

dispatches or business documents. because that had

4:34

to be by necessity their target market.

4:36

Yeah, the founders, William H. Russell, Alexander,

4:38

Major, or William B. Waddell, they already

4:41

ran a freight business together which relied

4:43

on wagon trains. They knew from the

4:45

beginning that the average person was never

4:47

going to be able to pay, you

4:49

know, even one dollar to send a

4:52

piece of mail that they could send

4:54

for two cents in a stagecoach. They

4:56

were relying on government contracts, the prospect

4:58

of government contracts in any case, because

5:00

with the civil war looking increasingly increasingly

5:03

inevitable, owning states that could then unite

5:05

against the North and they had to

5:07

rely on government subsidies during the whole

5:09

18 months of operation and they never

5:12

turned a profit. And actually you look

5:14

at some of the other companies that

5:16

were involved at this time trying to

5:18

set up similar operations and you've got

5:20

Wells Fargo who were running the stageco

5:23

service and American Express who were doing

5:25

the rival thing. So the prize really

5:27

was there for taking. I mean they

5:29

thought that it was possible that we

5:31

could now all be walking around with

5:34

you know Pony Express Platinum Platinum Guards

5:36

Platinum Guards in our pocket. One thing

5:38

that isn't quite clear to me is

5:40

why they wanted orphans. I presume so

5:43

that you wouldn't be being mourned by

5:45

family if something went awry? Is that

5:47

what that's all about? Yeah. But a

5:49

lot could go awry. You know, there

5:51

was deprivation riding for 10 days between

5:54

all these different stations across the desert.

5:56

And there was hijacking. There was extreme

5:58

weather, wind and sand. And you had

6:00

to be good alone. I mean, it's

6:02

you and a horse, right? Right. And

6:05

presumably a bit of back pain as

6:07

well, so Young helps. Yeah, although in

6:09

practice riders were supposed to swap out

6:11

after about 12 hours, which was equivalent

6:13

to about 75 miles, one rider called

6:16

William Campbell later recalled spending 24 hours

6:18

in the saddle riding through three feet

6:20

of snow. You know, there really was

6:22

nobody to help you if you got

6:25

trapped between those stations. I mean, that

6:27

said, the pay was good, $125 a

6:29

month. This is a time where the

6:31

average unskilled laborer might earn less than

6:33

a dollar a day. You know, that's

6:36

good money. which basically involved not doing

6:38

any of the traditional Wild West pursuits.

6:40

Under no circumstances were they to use

6:42

profane language, drink intoxicating liquors, quarrel or

6:44

fight with any other employee of the

6:47

firm, and they were to conduct themselves

6:49

honestly, be faithful to my duties and

6:51

direct all my acts as to win

6:53

the confidence of my employers, so help

6:55

me God. So how much time for

6:58

rollicking? What happens in the Sierra Mountain

7:00

stays in the Sierra Mountain, doesn't it?

7:02

How is that going to be... even

7:04

more dangerous for the people who were

7:07

in these outposts along the way. I

7:09

guess because you know the riders were

7:11

themselves kind of the fastest people on

7:13

horseback out there so it would be

7:15

quite hard to intercept them and only

7:18

six died during the whole time that

7:20

this service was running. Meanwhile quite a

7:22

lot more people who worked in these

7:24

waystations died over the years including 16

7:26

who died in one incident alone in

7:29

1860 during the pyramid lake war where

7:31

Native Americans attacked one of the... these

7:33

relay stations and I suppose this is

7:35

a thing that they were kind of

7:38

sitting ducks they were waiting for potential

7:40

ambush whereas the people who were on

7:42

horseback were making their way as swiftly

7:44

as possible across the country. Well to

7:46

take it back to this day in

7:49

history the first ever Pony Express run

7:51

was departing from St Joseph Missouri which

7:53

is the legendary starting point four wagon

7:55

trains heading west and obviously a great

7:57

deal had been made over the fact

8:00

that this journey was only going to

8:02

take ten days at the time. time.

8:04

They had 80 riders, 400 horses, you

8:06

know, hundreds of support staff lined up

8:08

at these relay stations, but the issue

8:11

wasn't with the express route itself. The

8:13

issue was that the first batch of

8:15

mail was coming from New York and

8:17

Washington, D.C. and it was arriving in

8:20

Hannibal, Missouri. However, it was two hours

8:22

behind schedule. What happened in the end

8:24

was the railway company had to lay

8:26

on a special locomotive to race across

8:28

Missouri and then in what was then

8:31

a record-breaking breaking time of four hours

8:33

and 51 minutes to ensure that this

8:35

kind of ceremonial first ride. part on

8:37

schedule, which kind of speaks to why

8:39

this was never going to be a

8:42

money-making venture, you know. Well, the problem

8:44

was they wanted an appropriately salubrious message

8:46

to be the first one that was

8:48

delivered, didn't they? So it was a

8:50

message of congratulations from President Buchanan to

8:53

the Governor of California, but those words

8:55

themselves had been telegraphed that very morning

8:57

from Washington to St Joseph. So, you

8:59

know, if it had just been a

9:02

normal letter... they'd have been able to

9:04

get it there actually on time without

9:06

the stress, wouldn't they? Well this is

9:08

the thing and the advent of the

9:10

first transcontinental telegraph was in October 1861.

9:13

So already after just 18 months, you

9:15

know, the Pony Express really wasn't that

9:17

useful anymore. But it was technology this,

9:19

that's the thing, it felt like magic,

9:21

it felt like the first time you

9:24

used the internet. You know, newspapers would

9:26

have a front page splash saying just

9:28

in from the Pony Express. It was

9:30

a great brand name for what America

9:33

could do because it's worth saying before

9:35

this news-wise, what's an worth saying before

9:37

this news-wise, what's an issue, in that

9:39

messages took 20 days sometimes to deliver

9:41

by stagecoach. Yeah, and then suddenly you

9:44

had all of these technological breakthrough breakthroughs

9:46

happening that showed... a pony express rider

9:48

galloping across the plane going past a

9:50

group of workmen putting up a telegraph

9:52

pole. A real artistic representation of this

9:55

race to connect the west with the

9:57

east. And in the event it happened

9:59

very quickly the transcontinental telegraph was connected

10:01

on the 24th of October 1861. Two

10:03

days later the Pony Express went out

10:06

of business. The last letters arrived at

10:08

their destination in November. You had this

10:10

romanticization going on and the reason why

10:12

the word Pony Express still lives to

10:15

this day is partly because you had

10:17

people like William Buffalo Bill Cody who

10:19

he himself claimed that he served as

10:21

a Pony Express rider at the age

10:23

of 14. He even claimed that he

10:26

once wrote a record 384 miles in

10:28

a single run. There is actually no

10:30

official document that Cody ever worked as

10:32

a messenger at all for the Pony

10:34

Express, but he puts... You really had

10:37

the wrong bill, didn't he? Absolutely, yeah.

10:39

But he still put the Pony Express

10:41

in his Wild West vaudeville shows, and

10:43

you know, had it be part of

10:45

the American mythos, that even though it

10:48

hadn't lasted that long, was a big

10:50

part of the country's identity. Well, it's

10:52

romantic, isn't it? It's a bit more

10:54

exciting to watch on stage than someone

10:57

telegraphing on stage. 1.2 megatons. So that's

10:59

like 50 to 80 Hiroshima's put together.

11:01

It's as tough. Ditch the ads and

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