Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. It's Chuck here, and I'm about to get
Speaker 1: on my pony and deliver the mail because it's July.
Speaker 1: Don't you mean eighteen? No? I mean because that's when
Speaker 1: this select episode was belched out by Josh and Chuck.
Speaker 1: It's called How the Pony Express Work. Yeah, welcome to
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles
Speaker 1: w Chuck Bryant. There's a cherry over there, and we're
Speaker 1: bringing you all the news fast as lightning in this
Speaker 1: episode on Pony Express. Hey, you resurrected that don't be
Speaker 1: Dumb Josh for a moment. Then you're also staining on
Speaker 1: your head in your chair. This is like the end
Speaker 1: of Primal fear Man. That Don't be Dumb Josh never
Speaker 1: went away. There's nothing but that Don't be Dumb. Who
Speaker 1: I hope I didn't ruin that for anybody just now.
Speaker 1: I probably did, But come on, it was the eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was a bit of a discussion about on the
Speaker 1: movie Crush facebook page about me spoiling things that are
Speaker 1: old movies like Jaws, like the Shark Dies, like a
Speaker 1: bunch of people came to my defense. They're like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a limit on spoilers, like if you're talking about
Speaker 1: a ten year old an older movie, like, come on,
Speaker 1: who who was it that chose Jaws? Was it Roman? Roman, Mars?
Speaker 1: He's got great taste. Man. I watched that movie twice
Speaker 1: in the last two weeks. The first time it was
Speaker 1: on mute and I was still like engrossed by it.
Speaker 1: And then I recently watched it from like start to
Speaker 1: finish um for the first time in well over a decade,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, it is basically perfect. Yea,
Speaker 1: everything about it. It's just enjoyable. It's beautifully shot, The
Speaker 1: characters are great. It's just wonderful. Here's the swimming with
Speaker 1: bow legged women. Oh yeah, man, he's he's quite a character.
Speaker 1: Is so good in that movie and drive us Man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of them. It's just so great. Yeah, even Roy Scheider. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my favorite moment in that whole movie. I think, well, gosh,
Speaker 1: there's so many, but don't spoil it when that real moment,
Speaker 1: like Spielberg peppers in these moments, it just makes it
Speaker 1: such a richer film, Like when he's sitting there with
Speaker 1: his kid. Before dry Fus comes over for dinner that night,
Speaker 1: he just has that moment with his son. We're ask
Speaker 1: him for a kiss and it's just leaven In. Just
Speaker 1: little tidbits like that make the movie so much more rich. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. That's our Spielberg. I have a question
Speaker 1: for you. Has there ever have been more attention paid
Speaker 1: to a utter failure of a business that was only
Speaker 1: open for about nineteen months than the Pony Express? Think
Speaker 1: trying to think it's really remarkable. Yeah, it's like the
Speaker 1: new Coke of mail service. Because when you said this topic,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, hot, diggity dog, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be great and it's an interesting story. But it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: the Pony Express was a big fat failure. Yeah, really,
Speaker 1: this is so. One of the articles we're working from
Speaker 1: is called the Pony Express colon Riders of Destiny in parentheses.
Speaker 1: Couldn't resist that, um Er Corbet Christopher Corbett um. And
Speaker 1: he basically makes the case that the most interesting thing
Speaker 1: about the Pony expresses the fact that we remember it
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, that that's real, the real story behind it,
Speaker 1: because it was a big stinking failure business wise, it
Speaker 1: was as success as an actual mail service, but as
Speaker 1: a business it was terrible. The timing was terrible, The
Speaker 1: whole structure of it was just a bad idea. It
Speaker 1: was just dumb. But it was as far as the
Speaker 1: service goes, if you're looking at the very definition of
Speaker 1: the word service, it was invaluable for a lot of people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So just to set the table real quick if you
Speaker 1: don't know what we're talking about, the Pony Express was
Speaker 1: a delivery a mail delivery system. Uh. When the the
Speaker 1: Transcontinental well, I guess pre Transcontinental Telegram when it only
Speaker 1: went how far east did that go at the time? St?
Speaker 1: Joe Missouri? Okay. St. Joe Missouri, and then it went
Speaker 1: west as far as Sacramento, Sacramento. And the idea was
Speaker 1: to join those two lines so you would have a
Speaker 1: true transcontinental telegram telegraph service. But before that happened, there
Speaker 1: were three entrepreneurs who said, we can close this gap
Speaker 1: because it takes weeks or months to get mail from
Speaker 1: east to west these days, and we can do that.
Speaker 1: We want to be able to do that in like
Speaker 1: a week to ten days. Yeah, which was enormously ambitious
Speaker 1: because if you sent mail overland right from you know,
Speaker 1: between Missouri and California. You maybe twenty five days was
Speaker 1: a good thing to expect for the mail to get there. Right,
Speaker 1: it's Missouri, that's one way, okay, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: send it by ship, months a couple of months before
Speaker 1: the person ever got the mail, because you gotta dig
Speaker 1: a river for Missouri to Sacramento. You gotta flood it,
Speaker 1: and then you gotta run the ship down that channel,
Speaker 1: and then when you get to the other side, you
Speaker 1: have to drain it and fill it back in start
Speaker 1: over the next time. It was a terrible idea. This
Speaker 1: is back when America was full of just complete idiots.
Speaker 1: But nowadays we know what we're doing. We've got the
Speaker 1: Internet and Twitter and all that stuff. Right, So there
Speaker 1: was this idea where if you were in California, which
Speaker 1: by this time was a state, and the reason California
Speaker 1: was a state before so much of the other parts
Speaker 1: of the country is because of the gold Brush of
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine brought a lot of people out west
Speaker 1: and they started to build and and create these cities,
Speaker 1: and California as a state. So you had Americans living
Speaker 1: in a state that was geographically isolated from the rest
Speaker 1: of the country. So they wanted news. They wanted newspapers,
Speaker 1: they wanted news of America back east. They wanted all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And again the telegraph lines weren't connected, so
Speaker 1: they set up this mail service to run in between
Speaker 1: them fastest lightning and fastest lightning was about ten days,
Speaker 1: like you said, and the whole route from Saint Joseph,
Speaker 1: Missouri to Sacramento took them about eighteen hundred miles, which
Speaker 1: is a really long way. But the way that they
Speaker 1: did it, chuck in just ten days was through a
Speaker 1: stroke of genius. Is that where I come in. I
Speaker 1: just set you up. Yeah, they had about They don't
Speaker 1: have great records, and we'll get into that, but as
Speaker 1: far as we can tell, and there's a boy, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of misinformation out there from over the years
Speaker 1: and not legend and lore and tall tales, but they
Speaker 1: had about eighty horseback riders, young wiry young men who
Speaker 1: they compared to like a modern day jockey. These were
Speaker 1: little guys, and by all accounts they could haul butt
Speaker 1: on horses. Though. Uh, they had about eighty of these dudes,
Speaker 1: and they had about four or five horses and several
Speaker 1: dozen what they called way stations or these stations in
Speaker 1: between where you would ride, ride, ride, ride, ride to
Speaker 1: a station either switch riders or switch horses or both
Speaker 1: and get you know, get a fresh horse, or if
Speaker 1: you were worn out, you would hand the mail off
Speaker 1: and we'll get to how that worked as well. And
Speaker 1: then they would go. And it was just a point
Speaker 1: to point thing where you would just move this mail
Speaker 1: as fast as you could ride a horse basically yep.
Speaker 1: And so the horses would last for ten to fifteen miles,
Speaker 1: depending on how rough the terrain was, and tween way stations,
Speaker 1: and then at the waist the next way station, the
Speaker 1: rider would jump from one horse to another horse with
Speaker 1: this mail bag called the Mochila, which you could hold
Speaker 1: about twenty pounds of mail, and would ride on to
Speaker 1: the next way station and switch horses again. And so
Speaker 1: the horses would go ten to fifteen miles and the
Speaker 1: riders would go about seventy five miles from what I've seen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And this whole operation was from a business called the
Speaker 1: Central Overland, California and Pike's Peak Express Company that was
Speaker 1: run by three gentlemen, Russell's Majors and Waddell, William, Hepburn
Speaker 1: Russell Alexander Majors and William Bradford Waddell, who had already
Speaker 1: been in the freight hauling business for military outposts, which
Speaker 1: you would think would be a great money making venture.
Speaker 1: But apparently when they started the Pony Express, all accounts
Speaker 1: say that their business probably wasn't doing very well when
Speaker 1: they even started, right, So they said, well, let's see
Speaker 1: what is a money pit we can sink our meaning
Speaker 1: money into what makes no sense financially. They said, oh,
Speaker 1: the Pony Express. Yeah, because you said, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons why it failed, which we'll get to,
Speaker 1: but you said that they held up to twenty pounds
Speaker 1: of mail in these uh these saddle bags. Again, by
Speaker 1: all accounts, they rarely had that much mail. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: would have eight or ten letters, and that's just not
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in the shipping business, you're not
Speaker 1: maximizing your load. No, I did some a little bit
Speaker 1: of math. Wasn't hard, but I'm still proud of it. Okay. Um,
Speaker 1: So they charged five dollars per half Graham, Yeah, at first,
Speaker 1: and so the Mochila could hold twenty pounds. So twenty
Speaker 1: pounds times thirty two is sixty or times five dollars
Speaker 1: to six hundred forty dollars and in today's money, that's
Speaker 1: about sixteen thousand, six hundred forty bucks. It's not bad,
Speaker 1: it's not too bad. Um. But apparently it was way
Speaker 1: more to maintain this line then than that. And like
Speaker 1: you said, plenty of these things only had a couple
Speaker 1: of dozen letters in them at any given time, and
Speaker 1: the people who would use the pony Express would write
Speaker 1: these letters on tissue paper to cut down on costs
Speaker 1: because you know, they charged by the half Graham. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was generally not just regular American people like uh,
Speaker 1: apparently it was mostly like government and military, and you know,
Speaker 1: you couldn't just generally people couldn't afford to send a
Speaker 1: letter by pony express, right, right, So newspapers would send
Speaker 1: cables to other newspapers. Um or yeah, like you said, government,
Speaker 1: although the government never officially granted a contract to the
Speaker 1: Central Overland. Um, they would use them, but there was
Speaker 1: no official contract. And it's I get the impression that
Speaker 1: had they ever landed a government contract, they might have
Speaker 1: they might have actually made money, although I don't think
Speaker 1: it would ultimately kept them from their their fate. But um,
Speaker 1: they they the fact that they didn't have a wide
Speaker 1: customer base, they didn't have a government contract, and then
Speaker 1: this was just such an expensive venture and they couldn't
Speaker 1: possibly make their money back from it. It was I
Speaker 1: don't know if we've gotten the point across yet or not.
Speaker 1: This is a terrible business venture. Yeah. And what made
Speaker 1: matters worse? I mean, they were likely doomed. Uh, maybe
Speaker 1: we should hold off the final nail in the coff
Speaker 1: until later, even though it's pretty obvious if you're paying attention.
Speaker 1: But one thing that heard him along the way for
Speaker 1: sure was the Pyramid Lake War, Yeah, or the Pie Pieutwar. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I even looked it up. That's what Emma Saying says.
Speaker 1: It was. Uh, that was in Nevada and Utah mainly,
Speaker 1: and that was a war that took a great toll
Speaker 1: on especially these way stations. Uh. And if you are
Speaker 1: a way station, dude, you've fared much worse than Pony
Speaker 1: Express writers as far as activity and attack from Native
Speaker 1: Americans because you were sitting duck basically in a station
Speaker 1: that that seems to be no more than just like
Speaker 1: four walls and a dirt floor and maybe a horse
Speaker 1: corral and a thing to put water in, yeah, on
Speaker 1: the open prairie. Yeah, you're sitting out there. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: during the Pyramid Lake War, hostilities between the Piute and
Speaker 1: Shoshonees who had banded together with the Pyramid Lake tribe,
Speaker 1: those Um, those three groups rose up together against UM,
Speaker 1: these settlers that you're, the Euro American settlers who have
Speaker 1: been UM coming out there and just basically encroaching on
Speaker 1: their land. The thing that the straw that broke the
Speaker 1: camel's back was UM. A pair of Um brothers, Euro
Speaker 1: American brothers kidnapped a couple of Piute I think twelve
Speaker 1: year old girls and raped them and kept them hidden
Speaker 1: at one of these little towns, these little frontier towns,
Speaker 1: and the Piute Indians got wind of this and went
Speaker 1: and found them killed. Bole of the people burned the
Speaker 1: town down and then started going from like towntown or
Speaker 1: um town to town, but also a way station to
Speaker 1: way station, just like UM, massacring people there, burning down
Speaker 1: way stations, just basically like torching all these places, right Um.
Speaker 1: And at first, the the cavalry was called in and
Speaker 1: grossly underestimated what the Paiu and Shoshone and Pyramid Um
Speaker 1: group was capable of uh, and just got got whooped basically,
Speaker 1: and then the they further reinforcements that got called in.
Speaker 1: We're basically able to bring it to a standoff. But this,
Speaker 1: this whole thing just raised tensions from simmering below, you know,
Speaker 1: the surface, to out and out right what you would
Speaker 1: call a war between these tribes and the Americans who
Speaker 1: were pressing into their land. So from that moment on,
Speaker 1: it got way more difficult and scarier to be a
Speaker 1: Pony Express rider. And as per Pony Express history, this
Speaker 1: happened like ten weeks after the first rider disembarked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they I mean not only did it cost them,
Speaker 1: uh men, but it costs them about seventy five grand,
Speaker 1: and this is an eighteen sixty it's like to something
Speaker 1: million today. Yeah, I mean that was a huge loss.
Speaker 1: So they started they ramped up their operation to try
Speaker 1: and make up for that, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they were delivering twice a week instead of once a week. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they eventually tried to lower their prices too, but
Speaker 1: it just none of it worked, and financially it was
Speaker 1: a mess. Uh. Like I said earlier, they didn't really
Speaker 1: keep a lot of records. They either didn't keep them,
Speaker 1: or they may have destroyed them. That's what I think,
Speaker 1: to avoid creditors, because these guys were not the greatest
Speaker 1: well I don't know if they weren't the greatest businessmen,
Speaker 1: but they surely didn't farewell in this case. Well one
Speaker 1: of them was supposedly an outright calm man Russell. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah he was. He was supposedly he was the spokesperson
Speaker 1: for this this business venture, and he was good at that,
Speaker 1: but he was not, um, not a great stand up
Speaker 1: guy as far as business is concerned. So the image
Speaker 1: that you get in your head of Pony Express or
Speaker 1: these guys riding full bore on these horses being chased
Speaker 1: by Native Americans and desperados, and uh, apparently all the
Speaker 1: you know, many of the books over the years, even
Speaker 1: ones that sound U super official a lot of times
Speaker 1: were just made up stories. Uh when and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about who finally got in touch with
Speaker 1: a lot of these riders. But apparently when they were
Speaker 1: um officially on record, they didn't talk a lot about
Speaker 1: fighting the Native Americans or anyone. They talked about the weather,
Speaker 1: stinking about being ripped off and not being paid. Uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like normal business complaints. And it wasn't like
Speaker 1: the thing that you see at the Wells Fargo Bank,
Speaker 1: like yeah, we rode horses fast, but it kind of sucked, right.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is like this, this was a
Speaker 1: a legend in its own time, is how I've seen it. Put. Um, well,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that after a break. How about that.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, okay. Um so Chuck, we said that,
Speaker 1: like the Pony Express was a legend, and sometimes that's
Speaker 1: absolutely true. Like there was again in part of William
Speaker 1: Russell's superior spokesperson ship. I think is a word. Um
Speaker 1: they like newspapers wrote about it in Sacramento they called it,
Speaker 1: there are friend the pony Um. I think they were
Speaker 1: referring to drugs. I think they were talking about the
Speaker 1: Pony Express. But um, like people love the Pony Express.
Speaker 1: It was It was just hugely innovative and the idea
Speaker 1: that like these guys were out there riding as fast
Speaker 1: as they can for scores of miles with bandits on
Speaker 1: their tails, just to bring us the mail. People fell
Speaker 1: in love with this thing, even though at the end
Speaker 1: of the day the thing lasted like eighteen months. Like
Speaker 1: the Pony Express, it was huge legend that we think of.
Speaker 1: It was an eighteen month business venture that ultimately failed, right,
Speaker 1: but it was a legend um. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that was a legend is because there there were
Speaker 1: a um, I mean, there were real deal exploits going
Speaker 1: on on the trail. There were some writers who were
Speaker 1: just amazing, Like one guy was called, um, what was
Speaker 1: pony Bob's last name? Has them? Right, pony Bob has them.
Speaker 1: He was one of the writers for the Pony to
Speaker 1: Express who ironically wasn't as legendary as he should have
Speaker 1: been because he was the actual real deal, but he
Speaker 1: ended up being forgotten because they get the impression he
Speaker 1: wasn't much of a self promoter. Yeah, he made a
Speaker 1: legendary documented journey of three hundred and eighty miles without relief.
Speaker 1: At one point where he basically road to road and
Speaker 1: road and road went to his station to switch riders,
Speaker 1: and the guy there was like, well, I'm not going,
Speaker 1: Like there's there's indians out there trying to kill me.
Speaker 1: And so he was like, all right, I'm gonna keep going.
Speaker 1: And he kept going and delivered the mail and eventually
Speaker 1: made his way back and and it ended up being
Speaker 1: a three eighty mile round trip. And he's, like I said,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of great documentation. But even though
Speaker 1: he's been lost to history, he was very well documented
Speaker 1: as an expert writer. Yeah, he definitely was. Um, there
Speaker 1: was another one called Billy Fisher who had a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting claim to fame. He was out riding on the
Speaker 1: trail and um, it was during a snowstorm. So this
Speaker 1: is another thing too. You said that the riders complained
Speaker 1: about things like the terrible weather, like they were carrying
Speaker 1: mail from um, let's see Missouri to Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California.
Speaker 1: Weather especially say like in January, you're gonna run into
Speaker 1: some terrible snowstorms, right, And Billy Fisher found himself in
Speaker 1: one of these snowstorms and he first he just dismounted.
Speaker 1: He's like, I just gotta go over here and go
Speaker 1: to sleep for a little while in a blizzard. And um,
Speaker 1: he started to fall asleep and he woke up to
Speaker 1: something licking his face and it was a jack rabbit
Speaker 1: who had basically licked his face till he woke up.
Speaker 1: I didn't know they licked. I think this may have
Speaker 1: been as his spirit animal actually uh, and the rabbit
Speaker 1: like startled Billy Fisher, and Billy Fisher startled the rabbit
Speaker 1: and the rabbit ran off, But it woke Billy Fisher up,
Speaker 1: and he said, if that rabbit had licked my face
Speaker 1: and woke me up, I never would have woken up.
Speaker 1: I would have just frozen to death out there in
Speaker 1: this blizzard. But he was woken up enough and realized
Speaker 1: the gravity of the situation enough they got back on
Speaker 1: his horse and kept rioting to safety. Sounds like legend, yeah,
Speaker 1: And to to top it off, his great great grandson
Speaker 1: is William Fisher, who was one of the U S
Speaker 1: astronauts who flew the Space Shuttle. So legend, and these
Speaker 1: stories are like going around and like being circulated in
Speaker 1: newspapers and among people while the pony expresses going on, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there were some very bad, uh not exploit
Speaker 1: of sensationalist books written over the years. And then there
Speaker 1: was also a couple of real legitimate dudes, Captain Sir
Speaker 1: Richard Burton, the famous British explorer, and one Samuel Clemens
Speaker 1: year old future Mark Twain. They both individually, um kind
Speaker 1: of spent some time out there documenting the Pony Express,
Speaker 1: and it seems like Burton didn't have a good time
Speaker 1: out there. He didn't like the West. He did. He
Speaker 1: always complained about the flies and the fleas and just
Speaker 1: the filth and just the people. He just was not
Speaker 1: a fan. But he still gave a fairly accurate account
Speaker 1: of like the day to day of a Pony Express
Speaker 1: writer Clemens, Mr. The Future Mark Twain seemed to have
Speaker 1: a good time. And you know, in his true fashion,
Speaker 1: wrote some of the uh some really flower flowery eyewitness
Speaker 1: testimony about seeing these horsemen coming across the tundra and
Speaker 1: the planes. It's pretty cool. You're gonna read that? No, well,
Speaker 1: everybody go read that. It's in um Roughing It, which
Speaker 1: is his book about traveling the US, and he surfs
Speaker 1: in it. Did you know that? I didn't. He goes
Speaker 1: to Hawaii and tries surfing when they used to surfing,
Speaker 1: like ten ft long wooden boards. Head clean off. Go
Speaker 1: go read that quote in your in your best hell
Speaker 1: hole brook impression. Really good way to do it. I'm
Speaker 1: more a Val Kilmer Mark Twain guy, that's right. I
Speaker 1: forgot he did that. Everyone did Chuck man Um. So
Speaker 1: you had Mark Twain and Captain Sir Richard Burton providing
Speaker 1: like contemporary accounts. But that's like, that is virtually it, right,
Speaker 1: there were again this is a failed business venture. Let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and tell him what happened? Why it was
Speaker 1: failed business venture? Chuck? Why why ultimately died? Well, they
Speaker 1: finally hooked up the two, they finally closed that gap
Speaker 1: on the telegraph. They're like, well, we can go coast
Speaker 1: to coast now, so you're you're sort of immediately literally
Speaker 1: immediately out of business. Yeah, the first two days later
Speaker 1: they closed. The first rider headed out on April third,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty and it was October twenty six of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty one where the last one headed out from St. Joe's.
Speaker 1: And some people will say, well, it didn't actually stop
Speaker 1: in October. It was actually in November because those Mochilas
Speaker 1: didn't end up into in Sacramento until November. That's fine, whatever.
Speaker 1: It was like eighteen months, seventies something weeks of Operation
Speaker 1: um and people loved it at the time. But as
Speaker 1: with most things, once the new, better, greater thing came
Speaker 1: along the telegram, they forgot about it pretty quick and
Speaker 1: we really honestly would not have any recollection of the
Speaker 1: Pony Express. It would be a footnote to a footnote
Speaker 1: in history if it weren't for one guy named Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bill Cody, who actually is the reason why we all
Speaker 1: remember the Pony Express. He had a soft spot in
Speaker 1: his heart for um, not just the Pony Express itself,
Speaker 1: but one of um the founders. I think it was
Speaker 1: Alexander Major's right, Yeah, I think so who um gave
Speaker 1: a h he was a kid, gave him a job
Speaker 1: when he was a kid. And while Bill um would
Speaker 1: go on or Buffalo Bill would go on to uh
Speaker 1: to say, a well, I was actually a Pony Express writer.
Speaker 1: All historical evidence suggests that that is not actually the case,
Speaker 1: but um, he definitely did work for Alexander Majors, who
Speaker 1: was one of the owners of the Pony Express as
Speaker 1: a horseback messenger, just not a Pony Express writer, which
Speaker 1: if you're talking about Pony Express legend, that's a major distinction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And Buffalo Bill would also go on to say, should
Speaker 1: a group brig front girl? Sorry? Is he called Buffalo Bill? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: I always for some reason I thought it was a
Speaker 1: playoff of Buffalo Bill, like Buffalo Bob or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was Buffalo Bill because he skinned his victims. I remember, Uh,
Speaker 1: should we take a break? Geez, okay, sure, all right,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about Buffalo Bill right after this. Alright, So Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bill's Wild West, Uh, I want to always want to
Speaker 1: say Wild West Extravaganza. You can call it that, but
Speaker 1: it was really Buffalo Bill's Wild West. That was a
Speaker 1: name of his big show that he took all over
Speaker 1: the country, delighting people with sharp shooting and horseback riding
Speaker 1: and all sorts of cool stuff, enchanting America with with
Speaker 1: the Old West, not just America, the world. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that's a solid point. I mean, he went
Speaker 1: all over Europe and that's why, and this article points
Speaker 1: out that's why to this day you can go to
Speaker 1: like a Pony Express themed club in Germany because back
Speaker 1: then he performed in front of Queen Victoria and Kaiser
Speaker 1: Billhelm and the and the Pope in Rome and basically
Speaker 1: kind of he always seemed to have at least one
Speaker 1: reported or purported Pony Express writer in the show. It
Speaker 1: was like one of the main um segments of his show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so at one point he did have who was the
Speaker 1: uh Bronco Broncho Charlie Miller. No, no, no, well he
Speaker 1: had him. Oh, pony Bob has them. Yeah, Pony Bob
Speaker 1: worked for him for a little while and he is
Speaker 1: a definite legit writer. The other guy, what's his name,
Speaker 1: Broncho Billy Broncho, Charlie Miller. Oh no, that was Clint
Speaker 1: Eastwood Bronco Charlie Miller claimed to have been a Pony
Speaker 1: Express writer. A lot of men claim to have been
Speaker 1: over the years that were not. Uh, And they traced
Speaker 1: his his timeline back and he would have been ten
Speaker 1: or eleven, which is really stretching it, like it is possible.
Speaker 1: It's possible because they did go as low as like
Speaker 1: thirteen and fourteen. But uh, it was never super confirmed
Speaker 1: that this guy actually wrote for the Pony Express. But
Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter because apparently everyone loved him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and so the reason why it's stretching it but
Speaker 1: still in the realm of possibility is because so like
Speaker 1: when when William Russell would talk about the Pony Express
Speaker 1: and his company would say, like, these men have to
Speaker 1: take an oath not to drink or fight, which still,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, we have like eighty eight people in
Speaker 1: the saddle and in reality, yeah, they were all drunk
Speaker 1: around like at all the way stations and on and
Speaker 1: on the trail. Um. And the impression is that you
Speaker 1: if you needed a rider and there was somebody who
Speaker 1: said i'll go, you, you were a Pony Express rider
Speaker 1: right then. So the idea that an eleven year old
Speaker 1: kids said i'll go and they said, all right, fine go,
Speaker 1: that could have possibly happened. So it's possible Bronco Charlie
Speaker 1: Miller did, right. But like you said, he was just
Speaker 1: such a great like old West archetype. They were like whatever,
Speaker 1: will believe anything you say. Yeah. So uh. Through the years,
Speaker 1: like we said, a lot of bad information, a lot
Speaker 1: of legend um everything from uh, from movies like N three,
Speaker 1: a paramount film called The Pony Express. Charlton Heston is
Speaker 1: Buffalo Bill. In the movie, Buffalo Bill teams up with
Speaker 1: wild Bill Hillock Hillcock to start the Pony Express. And
Speaker 1: as this author said, there is not a shard effect
Speaker 1: in the entire film. I don't know if he meant
Speaker 1: shred s all right, he could have said ship though,
Speaker 1: And then this the um if you read this, it
Speaker 1: sounds super cool, like a notice in the St. Louis
Speaker 1: and San Francisco newspaper that said wanted young, skinny, wiry
Speaker 1: fellows not over eighteen, must be expert writers willing to
Speaker 1: risk death. Daily orphans preferred way just twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: per week. And that seems like, man, what a great
Speaker 1: job listing for the Pony Express orphans That was written
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century by a journalist in the Sunset magazine.
Speaker 1: To that probably wasn't even true. No, no, that's so
Speaker 1: like again there was. It was forgotten like I think
Speaker 1: Alexander Major's wrote his um memoirs. Remember he was one
Speaker 1: of the three guys who owned the Pony Express. He
Speaker 1: wrote his memoirs like thirty forty years after Um, the
Speaker 1: Pony Express his last ride. So and by this time
Speaker 1: most people had forgotten it. And again it was Buffalo
Speaker 1: Bill who came along, actually paid a visit to Alexander
Speaker 1: Majors and found him in a fairly sorry state. He
Speaker 1: was broke, he was in poor health, and said, you
Speaker 1: gave me my first job when I was eleven after
Speaker 1: my father died, and I want to repay you by
Speaker 1: taking care of you. So he put him in a show.
Speaker 1: He let him stay at his old Scouts Rest ranch
Speaker 1: in Nebraska, just basically took care of him. But he
Speaker 1: also was like, we've got to publish this book. So
Speaker 1: he got Rand McNally to actually publish this book about
Speaker 1: his life as a freight old West freight legend guy,
Speaker 1: including the Pony ex Press, and that was some of
Speaker 1: the earliest documentation about it. But it also kicked off
Speaker 1: like this history of terrible documentation, of just surrounding the
Speaker 1: whole thing with tall tales and embellishments, and it just
Speaker 1: very quickly became it's very tough to to root fact
Speaker 1: from fiction even today, even at some of these places
Speaker 1: that are like, this is actually what this museum is.
Speaker 1: A A Pony express Way station may not be the case.
Speaker 1: They're not entirely certain what the trail was any longer.
Speaker 1: They think that there's some pristine segments that are aren't
Speaker 1: covered over by um tracks of some sort that they're
Speaker 1: actually like, this was the the course that the Pony
Speaker 1: Express took, but they're not a d percent sure. It
Speaker 1: just got lost the time. Yeah, I don't even think
Speaker 1: we mentioned that Buffalo bill Um. That job he got
Speaker 1: was was as a horseback delivery writer for the initial
Speaker 1: freight company. But he never wrote for the Pony Express.
Speaker 1: Though he did he right claim to or just kind
Speaker 1: of let people send that. No. In his in his
Speaker 1: in the notes for the Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show,
Speaker 1: it talked about how he was and then it would
Speaker 1: say you should buy his autobiography it shows even more.
Speaker 1: And then they would talk in depth about how he
Speaker 1: rode for the Ponty. Was for sure, if you were
Speaker 1: from the Old West of this time, you were basically
Speaker 1: expected to just lie constantly about some of the things
Speaker 1: you've done. And same not just with Buffalo Bill. Wild
Speaker 1: Bill Hiccock said the same thing. He worked for the
Speaker 1: Pony Express too, and he did. But he was one
Speaker 1: of those guys who ran away station intended to the
Speaker 1: horses lame well. He was bigger and older, so he
Speaker 1: couldn't write. You know, it wasn't his fault. He's a
Speaker 1: victim of circumstances. Yeah, there are also a bunch of uh.
Speaker 1: There was a series of last living Pony Express riders
Speaker 1: throughout the years. Um Various newspapers, even sometimes multiple times
Speaker 1: in the same newspaper over the years, would print articles
Speaker 1: claiming that the lad Pony Express writer has just died. Um,
Speaker 1: so we don't know if you know, any of them
Speaker 1: were or not, or if they were the last or not. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it finally took a woman named a poet, apparently
Speaker 1: not a very good one, named Mabel Loving, who said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you know was this someone actually write letters
Speaker 1: and get in touch with some of these people and
Speaker 1: get the true dirt. And she did that. She apparently
Speaker 1: wrote letters and had some correspondents with the surviving Pony
Speaker 1: Express writers as an amateur poet and said this was
Speaker 1: right before World War One, And apparently that is some
Speaker 1: of the only like real documentation we have from some
Speaker 1: of the real writers that she eventually published in something
Speaker 1: called The Pony Express Rides on exclamation Point, which apparently
Speaker 1: can still buy if you have a lot of money. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a collectible, I'm sure, yeah, I think. And
Speaker 1: supposedly the printers lost a couple of the chapters, so
Speaker 1: like even if you buy a copy, it's not and
Speaker 1: it's intact form because nobody took that very seriously, I
Speaker 1: think probably because of the exclamation point. It's never a
Speaker 1: good idea. No, Um, you got anything else? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess the PostScript is Uh, after this telegraph that,
Speaker 1: like I said, two days after it was hooked up,
Speaker 1: they realized that they were done for because they were
Speaker 1: already in bad financial straits. So watt l went home
Speaker 1: to Missouri. He was broke and in debt. He sold
Speaker 1: us home to his son for a dollar and still
Speaker 1: lived there. Uh. And apparently he died in April of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two, never worked again. Um Russell, who was
Speaker 1: only forty eight, went to New York. Failed as a stockbroker.
Speaker 1: Apparently no one trusted him. He filed for bankruptcy in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. Uh and this was what just five
Speaker 1: years after it shut down, sold off his assets to
Speaker 1: pay his creditors, went back to Missouri finally because of
Speaker 1: poor health, and died in eighteen seventy two. And then
Speaker 1: Majors lived the longest. Uh. And we know his story,
Speaker 1: Like you said, Buffalo Bill helped him publish his book. Right.
Speaker 1: And if there if Bronco Charlie Miller really was a
Speaker 1: pony Express rider, he definitely by far was the last
Speaker 1: one to die. He died at a hundred and five
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five, and years before that at age
Speaker 1: eighty two, he rode from New York to California on
Speaker 1: horseback to bring attention back to the uh, the Pony
Speaker 1: Express and the glory of it. Wow Pony Express. So
Speaker 1: final facts, they ended up losing about two hundred grand
Speaker 1: in that day's money, which is millions of dollars now.
Speaker 1: The personal best delivery time, apparently was when they carried
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address. They got it to California in
Speaker 1: seven days, seventeen hours, and in the end they delivered
Speaker 1: about thirty five thousand pieces of mail over that eighteen
Speaker 1: or nineteen months. And I think, isn't it wasn't only
Speaker 1: one mail shipment that didn't only one fail to make it?
Speaker 1: That's what I understand. Yeah, it's pretty good track record
Speaker 1: for a failed business. It's not bad at all. They
Speaker 1: all they wrote it combined half a million miles in
Speaker 1: that time. Pretty great. And again that's the Pony Express,
Speaker 1: totally different than what you thought about, but also sort
Speaker 1: of the same. I just didn't know that it was
Speaker 1: such a flopt. You just bad timing, terrible timing. Man. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: if you wanted more about the Pony Express, we'll get
Speaker 1: on out there on the trail. You varm it and
Speaker 1: check it out yourself. Uh. And since I said farm
Speaker 1: and it's time for listener mail. Oh no, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, it's time for administrated all right. Okay, for
Speaker 1: the uninitiated, this is where Josh and I and Jerry,
Speaker 1: by way of our voices, thank you for the nice
Speaker 1: things that you have sent us in the mail. Thank
Speaker 1: you gifts, tokens, crafts, books, postcards, letters. By the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't log all the postcards and letters. That can
Speaker 1: be tough. It can be tough. How about a blanket?
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone who sent us postcards in line Ofsgreed.
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, Dan Kent, thank you big time
Speaker 1: for sending us Pliny the Elder beer and T shirts. Yes.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the Bar Fight Supply Company for all the
Speaker 1: awesome leather goods, including the um the Mole skin holder,
Speaker 1: which I use a lot. Yeah yeah, the business card
Speaker 1: holders all that jam. Thank you very much. Guys. Kelly
Speaker 1: Sumski of Two Little Els, she sent us a or
Speaker 1: sent me a painted rock in memory of the Wizard
Speaker 1: of my cat who passed. Sweet. It was very sweet
Speaker 1: and very sad to get, but in a good way.
Speaker 1: Uh that bitter sweet. Chris Wallzac sent us beer from Hamburg,
Speaker 1: New York, and I p A. Thank you, Chris um
Speaker 1: Andy Krueger, you sent me a Ween T shirt that
Speaker 1: I wear all the time, including on stage in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I saw it myself. Um. Anna Dyne coffee. Uh they
Speaker 1: sent us some coffee from Milwaukee. Thanks Anna Dyne. Jeremiah
Speaker 1: and Mason Brandrick, Oh I remember this. They sent us
Speaker 1: the F five I p A, which is a beer
Speaker 1: I had when I spent some time in Tulsa. So
Speaker 1: it's I think a Tulsa beer and some beer in
Speaker 1: Bear in Stein Bear shirts soaked in cologne. It seemingly
Speaker 1: soaked in cologne. They they they're like, here, huh, you
Speaker 1: look like you smell. We're gonna make you pretty. It
Speaker 1: was interesting. Julie sent us handmade personalized Christmas ornaments, which
Speaker 1: it's been a while since we did this. Or um
Speaker 1: for Jerry, you, me, Emily and the kids. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: very nice. Those are great. Actually yeah that was on
Speaker 1: my tree. Uh. Kaylee Hamar sent uh my dog Niko
Speaker 1: some pet treats. Nice pet treater, very nice. Lindsay Lundstrom
Speaker 1: sent us some wonderful bottle key cap or bottle cap
Speaker 1: key chains. Yeah, there was s y s K one
Speaker 1: and don't be dumb one Last Chance Garage Mama Jerry
Speaker 1: Red Dragon and she's out of Etsy and Facebook at
Speaker 1: Red Dragon Handcrafts. Check them out. You're gonna love him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. Becca sent Uh sent me a library
Speaker 1: copy of a book, my children's book that I was
Speaker 1: so fond of as a kid, The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to read this with my daughter, Becca,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for sending that. Kelly Butler
Speaker 1: Olson sent Murdered by Death a copy of Murder by Death,
Speaker 1: arguably one of the greatest boof movies of all time.
Speaker 1: I'm one of my favorites, so thank you. Kelly K.
Speaker 1: B oh Taylor Stonehawker sent lovely Christmas card and handmade
Speaker 1: caramels which were demons. And nick' Stiglick sent us some
Speaker 1: stroop waffles, those amazing things that you put over your
Speaker 1: coffee to heat up. Yeah, we've we've got more than
Speaker 1: one stroop waffle, so if you also sent stroop waffles Mini,
Speaker 1: thanks and just send him again. Nathan for lots. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's actually Australian he's an artist and he sent us. Uh.
Speaker 1: These are great variety of bookmarks, magnets, coloring books all. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are animals with their bodies made of flowers and plants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's amazing. It's really nice, so you you should check
Speaker 1: this out. It's online at uh Marini for Lazzo dot
Speaker 1: au m A r I n I f E r
Speaker 1: l a z z o dot au and a portion
Speaker 1: of these sales go to wildlife conservation. So gorgeous and
Speaker 1: well funded. Speaking of gorgeous, Aidan Dale sent us metal
Speaker 1: sculpture orchids and you can find them at aiden a
Speaker 1: I D E N day old d A l e
Speaker 1: dot com. Thank you, Aiden. Just a few more here,
Speaker 1: folks alias Pagurko sitting honey from their three colony a pry.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. Thanks. That was awesome. Robin sent us
Speaker 1: beer and mead from Wisconsin and it was well appreciated
Speaker 1: and didn't last very long. Robin, thank you. We did
Speaker 1: not drink Wisconsin bly, Robbin. It was great. That's a
Speaker 1: T shirt. I didn't make it up. Bonnie Bowden sent
Speaker 1: us Mulda Ramas guitars, which I think it got from
Speaker 1: third Man Records in Nashville um. And I think she
Speaker 1: also sent the Willis Tower one which I was like,
Speaker 1: what the heck is the Willis Tower? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the Sears Tower. Well, and we got actually more
Speaker 1: than one person sent us molda ramas. Yeah, like Luke
Speaker 1: and David shirt Skull, father and son. This sent us
Speaker 1: elephant molder ramas from war Chuck to leto Zoo fam,
Speaker 1: which has probably the largest selection of mole rama's outside
Speaker 1: of the Chicago land area. It's right, and you grew
Speaker 1: up right there in the gorilla cage. It's right. Nathan
Speaker 1: sent us his band c d ep Missouri Loves Company
Speaker 1: or Missouri or Missouri Missouri Loves Company. Philip la Palm,
Speaker 1: great name, sent Robert Shaw Jaws Christmas card to Chuck.
Speaker 1: That's right. And then finally, just a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I got sent some guitar picks from Forever Pick. And
Speaker 1: apparently these picks have like a better sustain and better performance.
Speaker 1: And I have not yet plucked with him, but I
Speaker 1: can't wait to use my Forever picks. That is fantastic.
Speaker 1: You have some more, Yeah, We've got just a couple more, Chuck,
Speaker 1: if you'll bear with me, take us home. Brother. Um
Speaker 1: Josh Jones sent us catfish Head vodka. Oh yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, Josh. Um Doug sent us an amazing poster
Speaker 1: congratulating us for a thousand episodes, and old Off and
Speaker 1: Millie the Shop Dogs sent us the amazing railroad spike
Speaker 1: bottle openers. Remember those you can go to church mouseforge
Speaker 1: dot com. And dude, I want to say Ian Newton,
Speaker 1: who founded the Baltimore Whiskey Company. Ian has been sending
Speaker 1: us stuff like the shot Tower Gin. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a multi gen that I love. Um sent that
Speaker 1: bourbon that you love. Just has been sending us some
Speaker 1: pretty great stuff. So first of all, Ian, thank you.
Speaker 1: Second of all, Ian, keep it coming. And third, everybody
Speaker 1: else who's not Ian, go check out Baltimore Whiskey Company's stuff.
Speaker 1: The Baltimore Spirits Company. Um, they have just amazing booze
Speaker 1: that's locally made in Baltimore and you can tell it's
Speaker 1: like craft distilled stuff. You're gonna love it. So thank
Speaker 1: you to everybody who sent us anything. Ever, and if
Speaker 1: you send us something in between the last administrative details
Speaker 1: in this one, and we didn't say your name first
Speaker 1: of all, we apologize. Secondly, get in touch of the
Speaker 1: and let us know because we do want to thank you,
Speaker 1: and it's just an oversight. We're not actually mad at you, okay.
Speaker 1: And and I have even more. I want to thank
Speaker 1: Doug Sashery. I know how to pronounce the name now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys remember or not, but
Speaker 1: I mispronounced Tony Cocherri's seasoning creole seasoning. Uh. It turns
Speaker 1: out it's Tony Sassaris and Doug let me know by
Speaker 1: sending me tons of Tony Sasheries products and they're awesome,
Speaker 1: So thank you, Doug. I also want to thank another Doug,
Speaker 1: Doug Dixon, the CEO of Joel Cola, who sent us
Speaker 1: some Jolke Cola care packages. And then every once in
Speaker 1: a while people bring us stuff to our live shows.
Speaker 1: So thank you to Ron from Dundee, Michigan for giving
Speaker 1: me the um complete DVD set of Thunder the Barbarian,
Speaker 1: which I've never seen all the way through because of
Speaker 1: swimming lessons. And a very nice person gave us gooey
Speaker 1: cakes at the St. Louis show. Uh, our friend Dale
Speaker 1: from Australa, you send us a care package of Australian
Speaker 1: candy to um acclimate us to Australian Candy for Australia Tour.
Speaker 1: And then John from Capastrano Beach who sent us a
Speaker 1: giant puzzle wheel that I've yet to begin to even
Speaker 1: try to figure out. So thank you John for this madness.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, whether
Speaker 1: to send us something or just to say hi, you
Speaker 1: can go onto our website stuff Podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, check out our t shirt store at
Speaker 1: t Public t e public dot com, slash stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, and you can just send us a good
Speaker 1: old fashioned email to stuff Podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.