Pioneer: 2010 Vol.57 No.2

Celebrating
the
by Patrick Hearty,
NAT I O NAL PONY EXPRESS A SSOCIATION (NPEA), UTA H
By 1860, approximately half a million people lived
west of the Rocky Mountains. America was still a
young country, with plenty of room for big ideas
and bold enterprise. In the East, a well-organized postal
system kept information flowing, but out West, the lines
of communication were often stretched pretty thin. The
U.S. mail traveled on the Butterfield Stage Line, following
a route which made a huge arc from St. Louis, MO, south
through Ft. Smith, AR; El Paso TX, and Yuma, AZ, with
a branch that ran north to San Francisco. Mail for the
California goldfields could take three or more weeks. In
Utah, things were no more speedy or reliable, as a succession
of express companies tried their hands at
providing mail service. Something had to change.
It is not known for certain just how the idea
for the mail service we call the Pony Express
developed, but it involved William H.
Russell, partner in the giant freighting firm
of Russell, Majors and Waddell. The company controlled
a mammoth freight network hauling supplies for the
United States Army throughout the West. Russell was
the visionary and the entrepreneur, and it may have
been during a stagecoach trip across the country with
California Senator William M. Gwin that the idea
originated. Russell had his eye on a lucrative
mail contract, and Gwin had political
aspirations. Although Russell’s business
partners, Alexander Majors and
William B. Waddell, had serious reservations about
the new enterprise, Russell apparently had made a commitment
to Gwin. Russell organized the Central
Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company
2 PIONEER Vol. 57, No.2 2010
Title art by Brad Boe, Rosendale, Missouri.
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