William E. Hill

A history of the Pony Express and guidebook to sites. Author William Hill tracked down every station and post used by the Pony Express during its 18-month history; however, it’s a little strange to describe this as a “guidebook” since there aren’t specific directions to most of the locations. Hill recounts adventures on back roads; flat tires, stuck in the mud, etc. to get to some of the more out-of-the way sites, but doesn’t tell the reader how to follow. He does provide a great many “then and now” photographs, showing what a site looked like when in use and what it looks like today. He also relies heavily on Richard Burton’s The City of the Saints and Mark Twain’s Roughing It for a lot of the site descriptions, such that there are pages of quotes from each.


The history and chronology of the Pony Express are well done and mostly in his own words. The Pony Express was an offshoot of the freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, based out of Lexington, Missouri and the largest such firm in the US. Russell, Majors and Waddell had lost over $500K in the “Utah War” due to supplies, wagons and stock burned and destroyed; they were promised reimbursement by the U.S. Government but it was slow in coming. The Pony Express was a considerable “doubling down”; they realized they couldn’t make any money out of it, even at $10.00 per letter (around $285 in 2015 dollars), but hoped that a mail contract would bring other government business, specifically freighting supplies to military posts. That didn’t happen; the Civil War caused a major pullback of US troops from the west and Russell, Majors and Waddell went bankrupt in 1862.


Hill debunks several Pony Express myths. There’s a famous poster showing a rider and advertising for “young, skinny wiry fellows – orphans preferred”. As it turns out, this isn’t attested until 1923. I’ve read elsewhere that Pony Express riders weren’t allowed to carry weapons, because of the weight and because they would be tempted to fight instead of using their mount’s superior speed to get away; as it happens the riders carried weapons all the time and were encouraged to do so (favored were two Colt Dragoons. It is true that many riders also carried a rifle at first, but the rifles were quickly abandoned because it was too hard to aim, shoot and reload from a horse). In later years, many claimed to have been Pony Express riders; notably Buffalo Bill Cody, who was supposed to have made the longest single rider when another rider was killed. Although it’s documented that Buffalo Bill worked for Russell, Majors and Waddell as a messenger, he would have been 13 or 14 years old when the Pony Express was running, there’s no record of another rider being killed when claimed, and the distance he claimed to ride doesn’t match with the actual distance between the stations. An even more egregious claimant is Bronco Charlie Miller. Bronco Charlie died in 1955, which means we were briefly contemporaries; in addition to his Pony Express adventures, he also claimed to have met just about everybody in Western history, including Zebulon Pike, Davy Crockett, Joseph Robidoux, Jim Bridger, Mark Twain, Richard Burton, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull, Jack Slade, Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, and Buffalo Bill. The catch, of course, is Zebulon Pike died in 1813 and Davy Crockett in 1836; thus Bronco Charlie would have been rather elderly when he started his Pony Express career in 1860 and even more so when he died in 1955.


Worthwhile for the history, references and list of museums that have Pony Express exhibits; ironically not that much if you actually want to try and follow the Pony Express route.… (plus d'informations)