News From: NPEA Nebraska Division
The Pony Express only ran for a single year before telegraph lines and transcontinental railroads made it obsolete, but the ideals it represents—the rugged American spirit and the pioneering fortitude that tamed the Wild West—have ingrained it into American culture.
From April 1860 until October of 1861, the Pony Express route brought letters from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in just 10 days, an impressive feat in its time. Crossing the prairies, the vast deserts and snowy mountain peaks of the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, young men carried the mail across the western half of the United States. This week, the Pony Express rides again.