No one knew if the ride would go well No one had done it before Fry was expected to ride as quickly as he and his horse could to Seneca Kansas about 80 miles 130 km away There they would meet the next rider The train was delayed It did not appear until nearly 7 00 p m two hours late But by 7 15 p m Fry was ready to go A cannon boomed and the crowds cheered He took off as fast as his horse could carry him The Early Days of Mail Today in the United States mail is delivered every day of the week 6 PERSPECTIVES Limited Capacity With only one horse and no wagon the Pony Express riders could not carry very much To make sure they could go as quickly as possible no horse was allowed to carry more than 165 pounds 74 kg A rider could not weigh more than 125 pounds 56 kg Each rider had a mochila a leather case to carry the mail that weighed 20 pounds 9 kg when full Most riders also carried a water sack a horn to announce their arrival at the next station a Bible and one or two guns
Services such as UPS and FedEx deliver letters and packages overnight Technology such as e-mail makes moving information from place to place faster than ever before But in the early 1840s these services and technologies did not exist There were no telephones or computers and no delivery vans or cars People living in the eastern part of the United States had some technological benefits Train tracks and telegraph lines went as far west as the Mississippi River Getting mail and messages from the East Coast to places such as Missouri was not difficult though these systems were not as speedy as the ones in use today However anywhere west of the Mississippi was a challenge Without railroad tracks and telegraph lines it was very difficult to get messages and letters to the West Coast In the early 1840s mail from the East Coast to California did not go across the United States itself Instead it was sent on a ship 7
Clipper ships sailed around Cape Horn to deliver mail to the East and West Coasts that went around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America The delivery could take as long as six months to arrive in California The Gold Rush Draws People West In 1848 gold was discovered in California By the mid-1850s more than 300,000 people had moved to California to search for gold Some people wanted to keep in contact with friends and family back east 8
Others had business to conduct Six months was too long to wait for mail service The US government worked on finding ways to make the mail travel faster In 1849 they announced plans for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to deliver mail Ships brought mail south from the United States over the Atlantic Ocean to the Isthmus of Panama This area is in the narrow strip of land where North America meets South America Wagons mules and stagecoaches took the mail across land to the other side of the Isthmus There it was loaded onto a Pacific Mail Steamship 9 California’s Population Explosion California’s gold rush began in 1848 At that time the non-native population in California was only about 1,000 people But with the prospect of gold thousands of people from the East began moving west to find riches By the end of 1849 there were more than 100,000 non-native people in the area This huge rise in population led to an increased demand for faster mail service
