Chapter One Off and Running A huge crowd gathered in St Joseph Missouri on April 3 1860 Bands played and flags waved in the air Everyone was excited about the first run of the Pony Express Would the plan work Was it possible to deliver mail from St Joseph to California in only ten days The first Pony Express rider was due to leave at 5 00 that evening However the train bringing the mail was late An hour passed then another Finally a steam engine with a single car pulled into St Joseph A man hurried off the train with a bag of mail The bag held letters telegrams and newspapers All were made of thin paper to keep the weight down The mail was quickly wrapped in oiled silk to protect it from rain Riders passed through long stretches of deserted country This section of the Pony Express trail in Nevada still exists today ﱚ5ﱚ
Mystery Rider Many newspapers wrote about the first run of the Pony Express However none named the rider who left St Joseph Many believe the young rider was either Billy Richardson or Johnny Frey Although it was behind schedule the mail did not leave right away First people made speeches At last a cannon boomed and the rider raced down the street to the Missouri River There he boarded a ferry for the short trip to the Kansas Territory On the Kansas side the young man rode on through the darkness He stopped at Pony Express stations along the way At each station he quickly switched to a new horse and then started off again Several hours A ferry carries a covered wagon across a river Pony Express riders also used ferries to cross rivers ﱚ6ﱚ
later he handed the mailbag or mochila to another rider His part of the journey was over More than 2,000 miles 3,200 kilometers away much the same thing was happening A mochila filled with mail left San Francisco California on April 3 It traveled upriver to Sacramento arriving after midnight on April 4 Mail from Sacramento was added to the pouch Then a rider set off toward the East Later that day he handed the mailbag to another rider From one rider to another the mail traveled on From the East riders crossed the grasslands of Nebraska Territory They rode into Utah Territory and through Salt Lake City They crossed the dusty deserts of what is now Nevada They struggled up the steep and snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains Riders from the West made the journey in reverse Each rider stopped only to change horses and to pick up mail At the end of one rider’s run another took over On April 13 a rider from the West reached the last Pony Express station in the Kansas Territory He took the mailbag and rode to the river A ferry carried him and the mail to Missouri It was after dark when the rider arrived in St Joseph Still there was a crowd waiting for him People lit bonfires rang church bells and set off fireworks At about the same time in Placerville California another crowd had gathered They were waiting for Billy Hamilton who had the honor of being the last rider to ﱚ7ﱚ
