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Responding to the enduring lure of the West that captured his imagination as a child, Jerry Ellis decides to follow the trail of the Pony Express, a short-lived, hell-for-leather mail delivery service that lasted just one and a half years starting in 1860 but has marked itself in national memory ever since. Starting his journey in St. Joseph, Missouri, Ellis follows the Pony Express trail across Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada to the end of the line in San Francisco. Ellis succeeds in completing his twenty-one-hundred-mile journey by foot, horseback, covered wagon, hitchhiking, and canoe. Open to what he finds, including his own frailties, Ellis reports with sympathy and humor on the strange variety of the modern West.
Western Writers of America Spur Awards Finalist, Best Western Historical Nonfiction "A GROUNDBREAKING WORK. ... The first comprehensive history of the legendary transcontinental experiment in mail delivery in sixty years." —True West "This rollicking account of the daring enterprise known as the Pony Express brings its era and its legendary characters to life." —San Francisco Chronicle The new definitive history of the Pony Express by the #1 bestselling coauthor of American Sniper, illustrated with 50 images On the eve of the Civil War, three American businessmen launched an audacious plan to create a financial empire by transforming communications across the hostile territory between the nation’s two coasts. In the process, they created one of the most enduring icons of the American West: the Pony Express. Daring young men with colorful names like “Bronco Charlie” and “Sawed-Off Jim” galloped at speed over a vast and unforgiving landscape, etching an irresistible tale that passed into myth almost instantly. Equally an improbable success and a business disaster, the Pony Express came and went in just eighteen months, but not before uniting and captivating a nation on the brink of being torn apart. Jim DeFelice’s brilliantly entertaining West Like Lightning is the first major history of the Pony Express to put its birth, life, and legacy into the full context of the American story. The Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company—or “Pony Express,” as it came to be known—was part of a plan by William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell to create the next American Express, a transportation and financial juggernaut that already dominated commerce back east. All that stood in their way were almost two thousand miles of uninhabited desert, ice-capped mountains, oceanic plains roamed by Indian tribes, whitewater-choked rivers, and harsh, unsettled wilderness. The Pony used a relay system of courageous horseback riders to ferry mail halfway across a continent in just ten days. The challenges the riders faced were enormous, yet the Pony Express succeeded, delivering thousands of letters at record speed. The service instantly became the most direct means of communication between the eastern United States and its far western territories, helping to firmly connect them to the Union. Populated with cast of characters including Abraham Lincoln (news of whose electoral victory the Express delivered to California), Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody (who fed the legend of the Express in his Wild West Show), and Mark Twain (who celebrated the riders in Roughing It), West Like Lightning masterfully traces the development of the Pony Express and follows it from its start in St. Joseph, Missouri—the edge of the civilized world—west to Sacramento, the capital of California, then booming from the gold rush. Jim DeFelice, who traveled the Pony’s route in his research, plumbs the legends, myths, and surprising truth of the service, exploring its lasting relevance today as a symbol of American enterprise, audacity, and daring.
A need for speedy mail delivery from the East to the West led to one of the most famous mail services in history. The Pony Expresscovers the riders, dangers, and successes that led to the service's fame. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, maps, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.
In 1860, the first Pony Express rider set out on a trail from Missouri to California. With him, he carried a special delivery-the first mail ever carried by hand to the West. Over the next eleven days, he and many other riders would endure harsh weather, dangerous animals, and more, but nothing would diminish their unflagging determination and courage. Meticulously researched and gorgeously illustrated, Michael P. Spradlin and Layne Johnson's Off Like the Wind! brings to life an adventurous journey, full of suspense and excitement, that celebrates America's can-do attitude and pioneering spirit.
Author : William E. Hill Publisher : U of Nebraska Press Page : 350 pages File Size : 46,6 Mb Release : 2010-03-01 Category : Travel ISBN : 9780870044953
Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press It operated less than two years. It lost an enormous amount of money. But the Pony Express delivered the mail across a continent at a critical time and captured the imagination of people all over the world like few events in the history of the American West.
Jack of the Pony Express; Or, the Young Rider of the Mountain Trails by Frank V. Webster Pdf
"Your father is a little late to-night, isn't he Jack?" "Yes, Mrs. Watson, he should have been here a half-hour ago, and he would, too, if he had ridden Sunger instead of his own horse." "You think a lot of that pony of yours, don't you, Jack?" and a motherly-looking woman came to the doorway of a small cottage and peered up the mountain trail, which ran in front of the building. Out on the trail itself stood a tall, bronzed lad, who was, in fact, about seventeen years of age, but whose robust frame and athletic build made him appear several years older. "Yes, Mrs. Watson," the boy answered with a smile, "I do think a lot of Sunger, and he's worth it, too." "Yes, I guess he is. And he can travel swiftly, too. My goodness! The way you sometimes clatter past my house makes me think you'll sure have an accident. Sometimes I'm so nervous I can't look at you."
The Saga of the Pony Express by Joseph J. DiCerto Pdf
Threatened by civil war and Indian uprisings, the government in the mid-1800s needed better communication with its far-flung citizens in the West. Three visionaries dreamt up a seemingly impossible solution: the Pony Express. An elite cadre of riders would carry the U.S. mail across 2,000 miles of inhospitable wilderness in 10 days. Complete with dozens of illustrations, several maps, and appendixes of riders and relay stations--including stations the reader can still see today--The Saga of the Pony Express proves there's a reason some legends endure.
Chronicles the eighteen-month operation of the Pony Express, explaining why and how it was created, describing the challenges faced by riders, and discussing.
Follow the path of the first rider along the trail from Missouri to California, an eleven day trip despite harsh weather and dangerous animals, to deliver mail to the far coast of America.
“WANTED. YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS. NOT OVER 18. MUST BE EXPERT RIDERS. WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED.” —California newspaper help-wanted ad, 1860 The Pony Express is one of the most celebrated and enduring chapters in the history of the United States, a story of the all-American traits of bravery, bravado, and entrepreneurial risk that are part of the very fabric of the Old West. No image of the American West in the mid-1800s is more familiar, more beloved, and more powerful than that of the lone rider galloping the mail across hostile Indian territory. No image is more revered. And none is less understood. Orphans Preferred is both a revisionist history of this magnificent and ill-fated adventure and an entertaining look at the often larger-than-life individuals who created and perpetuated the myth of “the Pony,” as it is known along the Pony Express trail that runs from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express is a story that exists in the annals of Americana where fact and fable collide, a story as heroic as the journey of Lewis and Clark, as complex and revealing as the legacy of Custer’s Last Stand, and as muddled and freighted with yarns as Paul Revere’s midnight ride. Orphans Preferred is a fresh and exuberant reexamination of this great American story.
Jack of the Pony Express; Or, the Young Rider of the Mountain Trails by Frank V. Frank V. Webster Pdf
"Your father is a little late to-night, isn't he Jack?" "Yes, Mrs. Watson, he should have been here a half-hour ago, and he would, too, if he had ridden Sunger instead of his own horse." "You think a lot of that pony of yours, don't you, Jack?" and a motherly-looking woman came to the doorway of a small cottage and peered up the mountain trail, which ran in front of the building. Out on the trail itself stood a tall, bronzed lad, who was, in fact, about seventeen years of age, but whose robust frame and athletic build made him appear several years older. "Yes, Mrs. Watson," the boy answered with a smile, "I do think a lot of Sunger, and he's worth it, too." "Yes, I guess he is. And he can travel swiftly, too. My goodness! The way you sometimes clatter past my house makes me think you'll sure have an accident. Sometimes I'm so nervous I can't look at you." "Sunger is pretty sure-footed, even on worse mountain trails than the one from Rainbow Ridge to Golden Crossing," answered Jack with a laugh, that showed his white, even teeth, which formed a strange contrast to his tanned face. "Sunger," repeated Mrs. Watson, musingly. "What an odd name. I often wonder how you came to call him that." "It isn't his real name," explained Jack, as he gave another look up the trail over which the rays of the declining sun were shining, and then walked up to the porch, where he sat down. "The pony was once owned by a Mexican miner, and he named him something in Spanish which meant that the little horse could go so fast that he dodged the sun. Sundodger was what the name would be in English, I suppose, and after I bought him that's what I called him.
The Pony Express has a hold on the American imagination wildly out of proportion to its actual role in the history of the West. The system of transporting mail to California by a relay of lone riders on swift horses ran less than eighteen months in 1860-1861 and failed by every measure of success. Nevertheless, it has become the most iconic symbol of the West. Scott Alumbaugh was so taken with the Pony Express that at age 62 he bikepacked 1,400 miles of the trail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah. Alumbaugh’s journey took five weeks on a route that was mostly off-road, sometimes through remote territory. Along the way he came to see the celebrated Pony Express as a collection of fables based on a few historical facts and reshaped into a symbol of the spirit that “won the West.” On The Pony Express Trail: One Man’s Bikepacking Journey to Discover History from a Different Kind of Saddle recounts Scott Alumbaugh’s experience bikepacking the Pony Express Trail during the summer of 2021. The narrative follows his day-to-day experiences and impressions—the challenges, the sites he visited, the country he rode through, and the interactions with the people he met—while taking a fresh look at the real Pony Express in the context of mid-1800s historical events along the trail: The Mexican-American, Utah, and Paiute Wars; the California and Pike’s Peak gold rushes; the overland emigration of hundreds of thousands to Oregon and California; the exodus of tens of thousands of Mormons to Utah; and the increasingly contentious fight over slavery along with the looming threat of civil war.
The author weaves together stories of the original riders with his own modernday traveling experience on the Pony Express Trail used in 1860 to discover the fabric of our nation's character.
