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Badges That Won The West - Pony Express Messenger Badge

By: JoAnn Graham

Pony Express Messenger Badge Replica


Original Pony Express Stables and Museum, St. Joseph, MO.



Nothing about the Old West has captured our imaginations like the lone Pony Express messenger galloping across the frontier carrying a mail pouch he would defend with his life. The Pony Express Messenger Badge is an enduring symbol of a glorious, uniquely American enterprise that operated only eighteen months, between April 1860 and October 1861.

The image of the intrepid messenger riding alone over prairie, desert and mountains in all kinds of weather is certainly enough to fire our imaginations. But maybe the Pony Express looms large in the American psyche because it was an epic undertaking--an intercontinental message relay on a scale that had not been seen since the days of ancient Rome.

The threat of Civil War had made faster communications between the east and west coasts imperative for the Union, and the Pony Express--by carrying letters, telegrams and news of the day between them-- actually played a critical role in solidifying ties between the Union and California in the years leading up to the Civil War.

To William H. Russell, William B. Waddell, and Alexander Majors--partners in a large freight company transporting supplies to army outposts out west in horse- and oxen-drawn wagons--the need for faster mail service looked like an opportunity to wrest the lucrative overland mail contract away from the Butterfield Stage Company. They hoped to prove that men on horseback, traveling a shorter, north-central route, would be able to deliver the mail more quickly and safely than a stagecoach.

Riders departed simultaneously from Sacramento and St. Joseph, Missouri, and traveled 250 miles in a 24-hour day. The first westbound trip took 9 days and 23 hours, the eastbound trip, 11 days and 12 hours. The Pony Express relay network consisted of over a hundred stations (historical accounts vary on the exact number--somewhere between 150 and 180), 80 riders and 400 to 500 horses. Each leg of the "relay" was around ten miles long, since that was about the maximum distance a horse could travel at a gallop before exhaustion set in.

A rider blew his bugle as he approached the station, alerting the stationmaster to have a fresh horse saddled and loaded with the requisite water sack, etc. The rider then had only to take his mail sack (called a mochila), sling it over the horse's back and swing into the saddle, sitting on top of the mail sack and continue on his way. Riders usually traveled 75 to 100 miles before another rider would take over, riding day and night, in all kinds of weather. However there are documented cases where no fresh rider was available due to an emergency, and riders stayed in the saddle for twenty hours. They were paid $25 a week--not much by today's standards--but the average laborer in the early 1860s earned only $1 per day for 12 hours of work.

The Pony Express had been in operation only two and a half months when Congress passed a bill to subsidize the building of a transcontinental telegraph line between the Missouri River and the Pacific Coast. The completion of the telegraph line would sound the death knell for the daring horseback enterprise. But while the line was being constructed, it was business as usual for the Pony Express. The riders carried letters and newspapers from Saint Joseph to Sacramento and back, but telegrams were carried only between the two ends of the line already in construction.

As well as it worked for delivering the mail, the Pony Express was never a financial success, losing hundreds of thousands of dollars before it ceased operations in October, 1861. But it endures as a symbol of American pioneer spirit and determination, and the hoofbeats of the Pony Express rider still echo through the imaginations of every lover of the American West and its history.

The Pony Express suffered only one fatality--a rider killed by hostile Indians--and lost only one bag of mail. Pony Express riders logged a total of 650,000 miles on horseback.

Article Source: https://www.collectibles-articles.com

JoAnn Graham is an internet marketer and author with 28 years experience in advertising and marketing, and a special interest in vintage firearms and their history. For authentic replicas of Old West badges and historic firearms from the Old West, Civil War, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries and both World Wars, please visit www.GunsOfOld.com

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