WEBVTT - Selects: How the Pony Express Worked 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.160 Hi, everybody. It's Chuck here, and I'm about to get 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:06.760 on my pony and deliver the mail because it's July. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:15.560 Don't you mean eighteen? No? I mean because that's when 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.320 this select episode was belched out by Josh and Chuck. 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:30.560 It's called How the Pony Express Work. Yeah, welcome to 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:40.160 stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:45.159 you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:50.080 w Chuck Bryant. There's a cherry over there, and we're 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:55.560 bringing you all the news fast as lightning in this 0:00:55.640 --> 0:01:03.080 episode on Pony Express. Hey, you resurrected that don't be 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:08.120 Dumb Josh for a moment. Then you're also staining on 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.160 your head in your chair. This is like the end 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.000 of Primal fear Man. That Don't be Dumb Josh never 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.640 went away. There's nothing but that Don't be Dumb. Who 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.200 I hope I didn't ruin that for anybody just now. 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.360 I probably did, But come on, it was the eighties. Yeah. 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.240 There was a bit of a discussion about on the 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.200 movie Crush facebook page about me spoiling things that are 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:35.399 old movies like Jaws, like the Shark Dies, like a 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.440 bunch of people came to my defense. They're like, you know, 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.960 there's a limit on spoilers, like if you're talking about 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.680 a ten year old an older movie, like, come on, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.240 who who was it that chose Jaws? Was it Roman? Roman, Mars? 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.880 He's got great taste. Man. I watched that movie twice 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.680 in the last two weeks. The first time it was 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.080 on mute and I was still like engrossed by it. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.040 And then I recently watched it from like start to 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.560 finish um for the first time in well over a decade, 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.200 and I was like, oh my god, it is basically perfect. Yea, 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:13.120 everything about it. It's just enjoyable. It's beautifully shot, The 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.880 characters are great. It's just wonderful. Here's the swimming with 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:22.000 bow legged women. Oh yeah, man, he's he's quite a character. 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.600 Is so good in that movie and drive us Man, Yeah, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.239 all of them. It's just so great. Yeah, even Roy Scheider. Yeah, 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:31.720 my favorite moment in that whole movie. I think, well, gosh, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:36.080 there's so many, but don't spoil it when that real moment, 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.440 like Spielberg peppers in these moments, it just makes it 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.400 such a richer film, Like when he's sitting there with 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.960 his kid. Before dry Fus comes over for dinner that night, 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.880 he just has that moment with his son. We're ask 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:48.920 him for a kiss and it's just leaven In. Just 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.240 little tidbits like that make the movie so much more rich. Yeah, 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:58.000 I love it. That's our Spielberg. I have a question 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.959 for you. Has there ever have been more attention paid 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.720 to a utter failure of a business that was only 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.920 open for about nineteen months than the Pony Express? Think 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.080 trying to think it's really remarkable. Yeah, it's like the 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.320 new Coke of mail service. Because when you said this topic, 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.600 I was like, oh, hot, diggity dog, this is gonna 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.400 be great and it's an interesting story. But it's like, wow, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.800 the Pony Express was a big fat failure. Yeah, really, 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.880 this is so. One of the articles we're working from 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.840 is called the Pony Express colon Riders of Destiny in parentheses. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:39.560 Couldn't resist that, um Er Corbet Christopher Corbett um. And 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.000 he basically makes the case that the most interesting thing 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.760 about the Pony expresses the fact that we remember it 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.560 at all. Yeah, that that's real, the real story behind it, 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:55.520 because it was a big stinking failure business wise, it 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:58.520 was as success as an actual mail service, but as 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:03.440 a business it was terrible. The timing was terrible, The 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.040 whole structure of it was just a bad idea. It 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.600 was just dumb. But it was as far as the 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.040 service goes, if you're looking at the very definition of 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.720 the word service, it was invaluable for a lot of people. Yeah. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:18.800 So just to set the table real quick if you 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.200 don't know what we're talking about, the Pony Express was 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:27.839 a delivery a mail delivery system. Uh. When the the 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:34.400 Transcontinental well, I guess pre Transcontinental Telegram when it only 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.760 went how far east did that go at the time? St? 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.760 Joe Missouri? Okay. St. Joe Missouri, and then it went 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.520 west as far as Sacramento, Sacramento. And the idea was 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.640 to join those two lines so you would have a 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:54.080 true transcontinental telegram telegraph service. But before that happened, there 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:57.520 were three entrepreneurs who said, we can close this gap 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.719 because it takes weeks or months to get mail from 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.800 east to west these days, and we can do that. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:06.440 We want to be able to do that in like 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.960 a week to ten days. Yeah, which was enormously ambitious 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.120 because if you sent mail overland right from you know, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:20.120 between Missouri and California. You maybe twenty five days was 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.719 a good thing to expect for the mail to get there. Right, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.960 it's Missouri, that's one way, okay, if you wanted to 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.560 send it by ship, months a couple of months before 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.160 the person ever got the mail, because you gotta dig 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.520 a river for Missouri to Sacramento. You gotta flood it, 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:39.800 and then you gotta run the ship down that channel, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:41.839 and then when you get to the other side, you 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.159 have to drain it and fill it back in start 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.400 over the next time. It was a terrible idea. This 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.240 is back when America was full of just complete idiots. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.359 But nowadays we know what we're doing. We've got the 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.400 Internet and Twitter and all that stuff. Right, So there 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.000 was this idea where if you were in California, which 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.839 by this time was a state, and the reason California 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.520 was a state before so much of the other parts 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.120 of the country is because of the gold Brush of 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.200 eighteen forty nine brought a lot of people out west 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.880 and they started to build and and create these cities, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.080 and California as a state. So you had Americans living 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:22.279 in a state that was geographically isolated from the rest 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.520 of the country. So they wanted news. They wanted newspapers, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.240 they wanted news of America back east. They wanted all 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.800 this stuff. And again the telegraph lines weren't connected, so 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.320 they set up this mail service to run in between 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:39.679 them fastest lightning and fastest lightning was about ten days, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.920 like you said, and the whole route from Saint Joseph, 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:48.360 Missouri to Sacramento took them about eighteen hundred miles, which 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:50.880 is a really long way. But the way that they 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.279 did it, chuck in just ten days was through a 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.920 stroke of genius. Is that where I come in. I 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.480 just set you up. Yeah, they had about They don't 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.320 have great records, and we'll get into that, but as 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.640 far as we can tell, and there's a boy, there's 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.239 a lot of misinformation out there from over the years 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.480 and not legend and lore and tall tales, but they 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:15.640 had about eighty horseback riders, young wiry young men who 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.120 they compared to like a modern day jockey. These were 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.200 little guys, and by all accounts they could haul butt 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.360 on horses. Though. Uh, they had about eighty of these dudes, 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:29.760 and they had about four or five horses and several 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.680 dozen what they called way stations or these stations in 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.840 between where you would ride, ride, ride, ride, ride to 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.760 a station either switch riders or switch horses or both 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:42.640 and get you know, get a fresh horse, or if 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:44.920 you were worn out, you would hand the mail off 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.680 and we'll get to how that worked as well. And 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.400 then they would go. And it was just a point 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.880 to point thing where you would just move this mail 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.480 as fast as you could ride a horse basically yep. 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.840 And so the horses would last for ten to fifteen miles, 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.960 depending on how rough the terrain was, and tween way stations, 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.440 and then at the waist the next way station, the 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.720 rider would jump from one horse to another horse with 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.480 this mail bag called the Mochila, which you could hold 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.320 about twenty pounds of mail, and would ride on to 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.520 the next way station and switch horses again. And so 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.000 the horses would go ten to fifteen miles and the 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:22.000 riders would go about seventy five miles from what I've seen. Yeah, 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.880 And this whole operation was from a business called the 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:31.160 Central Overland, California and Pike's Peak Express Company that was 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:36.120 run by three gentlemen, Russell's Majors and Waddell, William, Hepburn 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.320 Russell Alexander Majors and William Bradford Waddell, who had already 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.280 been in the freight hauling business for military outposts, which 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.360 you would think would be a great money making venture. 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.800 But apparently when they started the Pony Express, all accounts 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.160 say that their business probably wasn't doing very well when 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.920 they even started, right, So they said, well, let's see 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.360 what is a money pit we can sink our meaning 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.959 money into what makes no sense financially. They said, oh, 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.520 the Pony Express. Yeah, because you said, I mean, there's 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:08.280 a lot of reasons why it failed, which we'll get to, 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:12.200 but you said that they held up to twenty pounds 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:17.280 of mail in these uh these saddle bags. Again, by 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.000 all accounts, they rarely had that much mail. Sometimes they 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.040 would have eight or ten letters, and that's just not 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:25.400 you know, if you're in the shipping business, you're not 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.800 maximizing your load. No, I did some a little bit 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.200 of math. Wasn't hard, but I'm still proud of it. Okay. Um, 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:37.280 So they charged five dollars per half Graham, Yeah, at first, 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:42.520 and so the Mochila could hold twenty pounds. So twenty 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.679 pounds times thirty two is sixty or times five dollars 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:50.000 to six hundred forty dollars and in today's money, that's 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.480 about sixteen thousand, six hundred forty bucks. It's not bad, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.120 it's not too bad. Um. But apparently it was way 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:03.600 more to maintain this line then than that. And like 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:05.720 you said, plenty of these things only had a couple 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.240 of dozen letters in them at any given time, and 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:10.960 the people who would use the pony Express would write 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.440 these letters on tissue paper to cut down on costs 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.439 because you know, they charged by the half Graham. Yeah, 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:23.000 and it was generally not just regular American people like uh, 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.880 apparently it was mostly like government and military, and you know, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.400 you couldn't just generally people couldn't afford to send a 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:35.840 letter by pony express, right, right, So newspapers would send 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.520 cables to other newspapers. Um or yeah, like you said, government, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:45.160 although the government never officially granted a contract to the 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.199 Central Overland. Um, they would use them, but there was 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.120 no official contract. And it's I get the impression that 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.920 had they ever landed a government contract, they might have 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.760 they might have actually made money, although I don't think 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:01.800 it would ultimately kept them from their their fate. But um, 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.120 they they the fact that they didn't have a wide 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.520 customer base, they didn't have a government contract, and then 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.160 this was just such an expensive venture and they couldn't 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.880 possibly make their money back from it. It was I 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:15.719 don't know if we've gotten the point across yet or not. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.880 This is a terrible business venture. Yeah. And what made 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.280 matters worse? I mean, they were likely doomed. Uh, maybe 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.000 we should hold off the final nail in the coff 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:28.200 until later, even though it's pretty obvious if you're paying attention. 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:30.440 But one thing that heard him along the way for 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:38.680 sure was the Pyramid Lake War, Yeah, or the Pie Pieutwar. Yeah. 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:40.800 I even looked it up. That's what Emma Saying says. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.680 It was. Uh, that was in Nevada and Utah mainly, 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:46.800 and that was a war that took a great toll 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.440 on especially these way stations. Uh. And if you are 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.920 a way station, dude, you've fared much worse than Pony 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.520 Express writers as far as activity and attack from Native 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:02.000 Americans because you were sitting duck basically in a station 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.520 that that seems to be no more than just like 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.240 four walls and a dirt floor and maybe a horse 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.640 corral and a thing to put water in, yeah, on 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.679 the open prairie. Yeah, you're sitting out there. Yeah. And 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.679 during the Pyramid Lake War, hostilities between the Piute and 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.520 Shoshonees who had banded together with the Pyramid Lake tribe, 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:27.200 those Um, those three groups rose up together against UM, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.880 these settlers that you're, the Euro American settlers who have 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.040 been UM coming out there and just basically encroaching on 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.360 their land. The thing that the straw that broke the 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:41.640 camel's back was UM. A pair of Um brothers, Euro 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:46.520 American brothers kidnapped a couple of Piute I think twelve 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.960 year old girls and raped them and kept them hidden 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.400 at one of these little towns, these little frontier towns, 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:58.000 and the Piute Indians got wind of this and went 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.440 and found them killed. Bole of the people burned the 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.960 town down and then started going from like towntown or 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.559 um town to town, but also a way station to 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:12.319 way station, just like UM, massacring people there, burning down 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:17.239 way stations, just basically like torching all these places, right Um. 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.720 And at first, the the cavalry was called in and 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:26.079 grossly underestimated what the Paiu and Shoshone and Pyramid Um 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:30.880 group was capable of uh, and just got got whooped basically, 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.360 and then the they further reinforcements that got called in. 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.400 We're basically able to bring it to a standoff. But this, 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:43.640 this whole thing just raised tensions from simmering below, you know, 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.320 the surface, to out and out right what you would 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:50.600 call a war between these tribes and the Americans who 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.160 were pressing into their land. So from that moment on, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:59.080 it got way more difficult and scarier to be a 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:04.160 Pony Express rider. And as per Pony Express history, this 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.160 happened like ten weeks after the first rider disembarked. Yeah, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.040 so they I mean not only did it cost them, 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.680 uh men, but it costs them about seventy five grand, 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:17.160 and this is an eighteen sixty it's like to something 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.600 million today. Yeah, I mean that was a huge loss. 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.360 So they started they ramped up their operation to try 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.160 and make up for that, and all of a sudden 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.120 they were delivering twice a week instead of once a week. Uh. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.600 And they eventually tried to lower their prices too, but 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.280 it just none of it worked, and financially it was 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.800 a mess. Uh. Like I said earlier, they didn't really 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.600 keep a lot of records. They either didn't keep them, 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.000 or they may have destroyed them. That's what I think, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.640 to avoid creditors, because these guys were not the greatest 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:46.280 well I don't know if they weren't the greatest businessmen, 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.320 but they surely didn't farewell in this case. Well one 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:53.840 of them was supposedly an outright calm man Russell. Oh yeah, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.600 yeah he was. He was supposedly he was the spokesperson 0:14:57.680 --> 0:14:59.880 for this this business venture, and he was good at that, 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.120 but he was not, um, not a great stand up 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.560 guy as far as business is concerned. So the image 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:08.280 that you get in your head of Pony Express or 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.600 these guys riding full bore on these horses being chased 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:18.320 by Native Americans and desperados, and uh, apparently all the 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:20.280 you know, many of the books over the years, even 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:26.200 ones that sound U super official a lot of times 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:29.640 were just made up stories. Uh when and we'll talk 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:31.280 a little bit about who finally got in touch with 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.520 a lot of these riders. But apparently when they were 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:39.000 um officially on record, they didn't talk a lot about 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.920 fighting the Native Americans or anyone. They talked about the weather, 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.960 stinking about being ripped off and not being paid. Uh, 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:51.400 sort of like normal business complaints. And it wasn't like 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.160 the thing that you see at the Wells Fargo Bank, 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.040 like yeah, we rode horses fast, but it kind of sucked, right. 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.080 But the thing is is like this, this was a 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.280 a legend in its own time, is how I've seen it. Put. Um, well, 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.040 we'll talk about that after a break. How about that. 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:40.680 Let's do it, okay. Um so Chuck, we said that, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.960 like the Pony Express was a legend, and sometimes that's 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:48.000 absolutely true. Like there was again in part of William 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:54.360 Russell's superior spokesperson ship. I think is a word. Um 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.880 they like newspapers wrote about it in Sacramento they called it, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.760 there are friend the pony Um. I think they were 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.000 referring to drugs. I think they were talking about the 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.199 Pony Express. But um, like people love the Pony Express. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:11.959 It was It was just hugely innovative and the idea 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.360 that like these guys were out there riding as fast 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.560 as they can for scores of miles with bandits on 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:21.600 their tails, just to bring us the mail. People fell 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.840 in love with this thing, even though at the end 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.080 of the day the thing lasted like eighteen months. Like 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.080 the Pony Express, it was huge legend that we think of. 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:36.000 It was an eighteen month business venture that ultimately failed, right, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.080 but it was a legend um. And one of the 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:41.600 reasons that was a legend is because there there were 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.480 a um, I mean, there were real deal exploits going 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.880 on on the trail. There were some writers who were 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.000 just amazing, Like one guy was called, um, what was 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:57.280 pony Bob's last name? Has them? Right, pony Bob has them. 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.080 He was one of the writers for the Pony to 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.720 Express who ironically wasn't as legendary as he should have 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.159 been because he was the actual real deal, but he 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.439 ended up being forgotten because they get the impression he 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.760 wasn't much of a self promoter. Yeah, he made a 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.920 legendary documented journey of three hundred and eighty miles without relief. 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.600 At one point where he basically road to road and 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.800 road and road went to his station to switch riders, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.399 and the guy there was like, well, I'm not going, 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.440 Like there's there's indians out there trying to kill me. 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.600 And so he was like, all right, I'm gonna keep going. 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.320 And he kept going and delivered the mail and eventually 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:38.080 made his way back and and it ended up being 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.080 a three eighty mile round trip. And he's, like I said, 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.640 there's not a lot of great documentation. But even though 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.159 he's been lost to history, he was very well documented 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:52.240 as an expert writer. Yeah, he definitely was. Um, there 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.600 was another one called Billy Fisher who had a pretty 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.080 interesting claim to fame. He was out riding on the 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.760 trail and um, it was during a snowstorm. So this 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:04.160 is another thing too. You said that the riders complained 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.400 about things like the terrible weather, like they were carrying 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:18.919 mail from um, let's see Missouri to Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.920 Weather especially say like in January, you're gonna run into 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.800 some terrible snowstorms, right, And Billy Fisher found himself in 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.040 one of these snowstorms and he first he just dismounted. 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:32.800 He's like, I just gotta go over here and go 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.560 to sleep for a little while in a blizzard. And um, 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.480 he started to fall asleep and he woke up to 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.600 something licking his face and it was a jack rabbit 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.840 who had basically licked his face till he woke up. 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.919 I didn't know they licked. I think this may have 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:52.840 been as his spirit animal actually uh, and the rabbit 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.639 like startled Billy Fisher, and Billy Fisher startled the rabbit 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.119 and the rabbit ran off, But it woke Billy Fisher up, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.000 and he said, if that rabbit had licked my face 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.919 and woke me up, I never would have woken up. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:03.639 I would have just frozen to death out there in 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:06.680 this blizzard. But he was woken up enough and realized 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.560 the gravity of the situation enough they got back on 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.880 his horse and kept rioting to safety. Sounds like legend, yeah, 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:15.840 And to to top it off, his great great grandson 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.119 is William Fisher, who was one of the U S 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:22.360 astronauts who flew the Space Shuttle. So legend, and these 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:26.000 stories are like going around and like being circulated in 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:30.240 newspapers and among people while the pony expresses going on, Yeah, 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:34.280 I mean there were some very bad, uh not exploit 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.760 of sensationalist books written over the years. And then there 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:44.240 was also a couple of real legitimate dudes, Captain Sir 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:48.960 Richard Burton, the famous British explorer, and one Samuel Clemens 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.880 year old future Mark Twain. They both individually, um kind 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.600 of spent some time out there documenting the Pony Express, 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.880 and it seems like Burton didn't have a good time 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.040 out there. He didn't like the West. He did. He 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.720 always complained about the flies and the fleas and just 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.840 the filth and just the people. He just was not 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.120 a fan. But he still gave a fairly accurate account 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:14.720 of like the day to day of a Pony Express 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:19.040 writer Clemens, Mr. The Future Mark Twain seemed to have 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.160 a good time. And you know, in his true fashion, 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:27.320 wrote some of the uh some really flower flowery eyewitness 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:30.760 testimony about seeing these horsemen coming across the tundra and 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:36.760 the planes. It's pretty cool. You're gonna read that? No, well, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.480 everybody go read that. It's in um Roughing It, which 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:43.640 is his book about traveling the US, and he surfs 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.240 in it. Did you know that? I didn't. He goes 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.240 to Hawaii and tries surfing when they used to surfing, 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.720 like ten ft long wooden boards. Head clean off. Go 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:56.440 go read that quote in your in your best hell 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:01.280 hole brook impression. Really good way to do it. I'm 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:05.919 more a Val Kilmer Mark Twain guy, that's right. I 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:11.040 forgot he did that. Everyone did Chuck man Um. So 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.920 you had Mark Twain and Captain Sir Richard Burton providing 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:19.840 like contemporary accounts. But that's like, that is virtually it, right, 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.920 there were again this is a failed business venture. Let's 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:25.480 go ahead and tell him what happened? Why it was 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:30.200 failed business venture? Chuck? Why why ultimately died? Well, they 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.600 finally hooked up the two, they finally closed that gap 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.920 on the telegraph. They're like, well, we can go coast 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:41.280 to coast now, so you're you're sort of immediately literally 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:44.240 immediately out of business. Yeah, the first two days later 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.840 they closed. The first rider headed out on April third, 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:52.600 eighteen sixty and it was October twenty six of eighteen 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.760 sixty one where the last one headed out from St. Joe's. 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.919 And some people will say, well, it didn't actually stop 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.080 in October. It was actually in November because those Mochilas 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:06.520 didn't end up into in Sacramento until November. That's fine, whatever. 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.480 It was like eighteen months, seventies something weeks of Operation 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.760 um and people loved it at the time. But as 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:18.680 with most things, once the new, better, greater thing came 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:22.520 along the telegram, they forgot about it pretty quick and 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:26.560 we really honestly would not have any recollection of the 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.000 Pony Express. It would be a footnote to a footnote 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:34.280 in history if it weren't for one guy named Buffalo 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:38.320 Bill Cody, who actually is the reason why we all 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:40.800 remember the Pony Express. He had a soft spot in 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:44.120 his heart for um, not just the Pony Express itself, 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:47.560 but one of um the founders. I think it was 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:52.360 Alexander Major's right, Yeah, I think so who um gave 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:54.360 a h he was a kid, gave him a job 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:56.920 when he was a kid. And while Bill um would 0:23:56.920 --> 0:23:59.440 go on or Buffalo Bill would go on to uh 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:01.880 to say, a well, I was actually a Pony Express writer. 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.920 All historical evidence suggests that that is not actually the case, 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:11.320 but um, he definitely did work for Alexander Majors, who 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:13.200 was one of the owners of the Pony Express as 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:16.360 a horseback messenger, just not a Pony Express writer, which 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:20.400 if you're talking about Pony Express legend, that's a major distinction. Yeah. 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.040 And Buffalo Bill would also go on to say, should 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:31.440 a group brig front girl? Sorry? Is he called Buffalo Bill? Yeah? Okay, 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:34.280