What Was The Pony Express?

The Pony Express was a brief U.S. experiment in rapid mail delivery. It is burned in the imagination of Americans as the personification of the romantic Old West.
Riders aged 11 to their mid-40s, who had to weigh less than 125 pounds, carried leather sacks of mail (called "mochilas," Spanish for rucksack) for 75-100 miles a day between 165 stations from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California..
The 80  to 100 riders on mustangs (tamed wild horses), pintos or Morgan horses rode at
an average speed of 10 miles per hour, and the 1,966-mile journey took 10 days.
The service lasted just 18 months, from April 1860 to October 1861, when the transcontinental telegraph line was completed.
While the Pony Express was an economic failure -- investors began it with $700,000 and realized just $200,000 in profits -- it improved communication between the East and West coasts, proved a central route could be travelled all winter, supported the main route for the eventual transcontinental railroad, and kept communication open to California at the beginning of the Civil War.
The route of the Pony Express ride became the course of U.S. Highway 50. The ride is enacted annually by volunteer riders, and is a great media event.

The Pony Express was a pioneer in making information available to the American masses in the Wild West, a  wonder that Americans got to see between 1860 and 1861. It was a service that was designed to carry information. Its cargo consisted of letters and news items. It operated between St. Joseph in Missouri and San Francisco in California, and made its first ever run in April 1860. Founded by Russell, Majors, and Waddell, it was a subsidiary of Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company. The Pony Express was a miracle in its time simply because of the incredible distance it covered, and the time it covered the distance in. Basically, the Pony Express involved a total of 80 to 100 riders on horseback, riding in relays,  carrying information and news on horseback; hence the name the Pony Express. It covered a distance of 1966 miles across seven states – Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. The riders covered this distance in a span of 10 days.

There were approximately 400 horses in the Pony Express, mostly of the Mustang and Morgan breeds. The average speed of the Pony Express was an impressive 10 miles an hour. Riders were switched every 75 to 100 miles, while horses were switched every 10 to 15 miles. There were a total of 150 to 190 stations dotting the trail, spaced 5-20 miles apart.

Despite all these achievements, the Express was deemed a failure in terms of profitability. The initial cost of sending mail was expensive, at $5 for every half ounce of mail, though the price was later cut to $1. It made its last run in November 1861.