WEBVTT - How the Pony Express Worked 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.600 dot com. Hey, you welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:21.200 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:26.799 we're bringing you all the news fast as lightning. In 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:34.520 this episode on Pony Express, Hey, you resurrected that don't 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:39.520 be Dumb Josh for a moment. Then you're also staining 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:41.400 on your head in your chair. This is like the 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.040 end of Primal fear Man. That Don't be Dumb Josh 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.880 never went away. There's nothing but that Don't Be Dumb. 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:51.680 I hope I didn't ruin that for anybody just now. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.880 I probably did, But come on, it was the eighties. Yeah. 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.760 There was a bit of a discussion about on the 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.720 movie Crush facebook page about me spoiling things that are 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.880 old movies like Jaws, like the Shark dies. Like a 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:08.920 bunch of people came to my defense. They're like, you know, 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.440 there's a limit on spoilers, Like if you're talking about 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:15.160 a ten year old an older movie, like come on, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.320 who who was it that chose Jaws? Was it Roman? 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.360 He's got great taste, man. I watched that movie twice 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.160 in the last two weeks the first time it was 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.560 on mute and I was still like engrossed by it. 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.520 And then I recently watched it from like start to 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.080 finish um for the first time in well over a decade, 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.080 and I was like, oh my god, it is basically 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.160 perfect everything about it. It's just enjoyable. It's beautifully shot, 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.200 the characters are great. It's just wonderful. Here's the swimming 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:53.480 with bow legged women. Yeah. Man, he's he's quite a character. 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.760 Was still good in that movie, man, Yeah, all of them. 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.280 It's just so great. Yeah, even Royce. Yeah. My favorite 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.440 moment in that whole movie, I think, well, gosh, there's 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.560 so many, but don't spoil it. When that real moment, 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.919 like Spielberg peppers in these moments, it just makes it 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.880 such a richer film, Like when he's sitting there with 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.480 his kid before Dreyfus comes over for dinner that night. 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:18.440 He just says that moment with his son, we're asked 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.400 him for a kiss, and it's just leaven in. Just 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.079 little tidbits like that make the movie so much more rich. 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:29.520 YEA love it. That's our Spielberg. I have a question 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:34.239 for you. Has there ever been more attention paid to 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:38.560 a utter failure of a business that was only open 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.640 for about nineteen months than the Pony Express. Trying to 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.160 think it's really remarkable. Yeah, it's like the new Coke 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:49.920 of mail service. Because when you said this topic, I 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.200 was like, oh, hot, diggity dog, this is gonna be 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:55.880 great and it's an interesting story. But it's like, wow, 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.280 the Pony Express was a big fat failure. Yeah. Really 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.520 this So one of the articles we're working from is 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:06.399 called the Pony Express colon Riders of Destiny in parentheses. 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:12.560 Couldn't resist that, um, Christopher Corbett um. And he basically 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.880 makes the case that the most interesting thing about the 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.840 Pony expresses the fact that we remember it at all. Yeah, 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.960 that that's real, the real story behind it, because it 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.480 was a big stinking failure. Business wise, it was as 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.639 success as an actual mail service, but as a business 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.880 it was terrible. The timing was terrible, The whole structure 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:38.400 of it was just a bad idea. It was just dumb. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:42.000 But it was as far as the service goes, if 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.320 you're looking at the very definition of the word service, 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.320 it was invaluable for a lot of people. Yeah, So 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.520 just to set the table real quick, if you don't 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.800 know what we're talking about. The Pony Express was a 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:59.800 delivery a mail delivery system. Uh. When the the trans 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:05.920 Continental well, I guess pre transcontinental telegram when it only 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.240 went how far east did that go at the time? St? 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.280 Joe Missouri? Okay? St. Joe Missouri, and then it went 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:17.000 west as far as Sacramento, Sacramento. And the idea was 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.120 to join those two lines so you would have a 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:25.560 true transcontinental telegram telegraph service. But before that happened, there 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.000 were three entrepreneurs who said, we can close this gap 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.200 because it takes weeks or months to get mail from 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.280 east to west these days, and we can do that. 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:37.920 We want to be able to do that in like 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:42.480 a week to ten days. Yeah, which was enormously ambitious, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:46.640 because if you sent mail overland right from you know, 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:51.599 between Missouri and California, you maybe twenty five days was 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.040 a good thing to expect for the mail to get there. 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.360 It's a Missouri that's one way, Okay, if you wanted 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.680 to send it by ship, months a couple of months 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.480 before the person ever got the mail, because you gotta 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:08.840 dig a river from Missouri to Sacramento. You gotta flood 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.320 it and then you gotta run the ship down that channel, 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.320 and then when you get to the other side, you 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:16.680 have to drain it and fill it back in start 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:18.880 over the next time. It was a terrible idea. This 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.720 was back when America was full of just complete idiots. 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:24.839 But nowadays we know what we're doing. We've got the 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:28.960 Internet and Twitter and all that stuff, right, So there 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.320 there was this idea where if you were in California, 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.719 which by this time was a state. And the reason 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.680 California was a state before so much of the other 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.640 parts of the country is because of the Goldbrush of 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.680 eighteen forty nine brought a lot of people out west 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.360 and they started to build and and create these cities, 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.599 and California was a state. So you had Americans living 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.800 in a state that was geographically isolated from the rest 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.000 of the country. So they wanted news, they wanted newspapers, 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:59.720 they wanted news of America back east. They wanted all 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.320 this tough and again the telegraph lines weren't connected, so 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:06.800 they set up this mail service to run in between 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:11.200 them fastest lightning and fastest lightning was about ten days, 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.400 like you said, and the whole route from St. Joseph, 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:19.840 Missouri to Sacramento took them about eighteen hundred miles, which 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.360 is a really long way. But the way that they 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:24.760 did a chuck in just ten days was through a 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.359 stroke of genius. Is that where I come in. I 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.440 just set you up. Yeah, they had about uh, and 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:33.480 they don't have great records, and we'll get into that, 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.920 but as far as we can tell, and there's a boy, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.360 there's a lot of misinformation out there from over the 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.960 years and legend and lore and tall tales, but they 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:47.200 had about eighty horseback riders, young wiry young men who 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.600 they compared to like a modern day jockey. These were 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.680 little guys and by all accounts they could haul butt 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.880 on horses. Though. Uh. They had about eighty of these dudes. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.240 And they had about four or five horses and several 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.560 dozen what they called way stations or these stations in between, 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:07.440 where you would ride ride, ride, ride, ride to a 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:12.400 station either switch riders or switch horses or both and 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:14.240 get you know, get a fresh horse, or if you 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.560 were worn out, you would hand the mail off and 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.200 we'll get to the how that worked as well. And 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:20.840 then they would go and it was just a point 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.360 to point thing where you would just move this mail 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.960 as fast as you could ride a horse basically yep. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.320 And so the horses would last for ten to fifteen miles, 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.440 depending on how rough the terrain was in between way stations, 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:34.920 and then at the waist the next way station, the 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.240 rider would jump from one horse to another horse with 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.000 this mail bag called the Mochila, which you could hold 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.800 about twenty pounds of mail, and would ride on to 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.000 the next way station and switch horses again. And so 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:49.480 the horses would go ten to fifteen miles and the 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.560 riders would go about seventy five miles from what I've seen. Yeah, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:57.360 And this whole operation was from a business called the 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:02.640 Central Overland, California and Pie Speak Express Company that was 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.600 run by three gentlemen, Russell's Majors and Waddell, William Hepburn 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.840 Russell Alexander Majors and William Bradford Waddell, who had already 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.760 been in the freight hauling business for military outposts, which 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.960 you think would be a great money making venture. But 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:24.480 apparently when they started the Pony Express, all accounts say 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.760 that their business probably wasn't doing very well when they 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:29.560 even started, right, so they said, well, let's see what 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.240 is a money pit, we can sink our remaining money 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.600 into what makes no sense financially. They said, oh, the 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.079 Pony Express. Yeah, because you said, I mean, there's a 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:39.760 lot of reasons why it failed, which we'll get to. 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.760 But you said that they held up to twenty pounds 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.800 of mail in these uh these saddle bags. Again, by 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.480 all accounts, they rarely had that much mail. Sometimes they 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.520 would have eight or ten letters, and that's just not 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:56.880 you know, if you're in the shipping business, you're not 0:08:56.960 --> 0:09:01.280 maximizing your load. No, I did some a little bit 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.680 of math. Wasn't hard, but I'm still proud of it. Um. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.760 So they charged five dollars per half graham at first, 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.600 and so the the Mochila could hold twenty pounds. So 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.880 twenty pounds times thirty two is sixty or times five 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.240 dollars the six hundred forty dollars and in today's money, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:25.840 that's about sixteen thousand, six hundred forty bucks. It's not 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:30.800 too bad, um. But apparently it was way more to 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.559 maintain this line than than that. And like you said, 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.240 plenty of these things only had a couple dozen letters 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.240 in him at any given time. And the people who 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.240 would use the pony Express would write these letters on 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:46.760 tissue paper to cut down on costs, because you know, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.240 they charged by the half Graham. Yeah, and it was 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:55.160 generally not just regular American people like uh, apparently it 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.520 was mostly like government and military, and you know, you 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:02.200 couldn't just generally people couldn't afford to send a letter 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:07.840 by pony express, right right, So newspapers would send cables 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.040 to other newspapers. Um or yeah, like you said, government 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.640 although the government never officially granted a contract to the 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.679 Central Overland. Um, they would use them, but there was 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.600 no official contract. And it's I get the impression that 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.439 had they ever landed a government contract they might have 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.280 they might have actually made money, although I don't think 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.440 it would ultimately kept them from their their fate. But um, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.600 they they the fact that they didn't have a wide 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:40.000 customer base, they didn't have a government contract, and then 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.640 this was just such an expensive venture and they couldn't 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:45.360 possibly make their money back from it. It was I 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.240 don't know if we've gotten the point across yet or not. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.360 This is a terrible business venture. Yeah, and what made 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.760 matters worse, I mean, they were likely doomed. Uh, maybe 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:55.560 we should hold off the final nail in the coffin 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.680 until later, even though it's pretty obvious if you're paying attention. 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:01.960 But one thing that heard him along the way for 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:10.160 sure was the Pyramid Lake War, Yeah, or the Piute War. Yeah. 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:12.320 I even looked it up. That's what Emma Saying says. 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.200 It was. Uh, that was in Nevada and Utah mainly, 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.280 and that was a war that took a great toll 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.959 on especially these way stations. Uh. And if you are 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.400 a way station, dude, you've fared much worse than Pony 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:29.000 Express writers as far as activity an attack from Native 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.480 Americans because you were sitting duck basically in a station 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:36.000 that that seems to be no more than just like 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.720 four walls and a dirt floor and maybe a horse 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.120 corral and a thing to put water in. Yeah, on 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.120 the open prairie. Yeah, you were sitting out there. Yeah. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.920 And during the Pyramid Lake warm hostilities between the Piute 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.040 and Shoshonees who had banded together with the Pyramid Lake tribe, 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:58.679 those um, those three groups rose up together against um. 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.280 The settler is the euro the Euro American settlers who 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.440 have been um coming out there and just basically encroaching 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.720 on their land. The thing that the straw that broke 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.520 the camel's back was Um. A pair of Um brothers, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.719 Euro American brothers kidnapped a couple of Piute I think 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.040 twelve year old girls and raped them and kept them 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.920 hidden at one of these little towns, these little frontier towns, 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:29.480 and the Piute Indians got wind of this and went 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.840 and found him, killed a couple of the people, burned 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.280 the town down and then started going from like towntown 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.040 or um town totown, but also a way station to 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:43.840 way station, just like Um, massacring people there, burning down 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:48.360 way stations, just basically like torching all these places right Um. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.200 And at first the the cavalry was called in and 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:58.000 grossly underestimated what the Piute and Shoshonian pyramid Um group 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.359 was capable of UH and just got got whooped basically. 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.839 And then the they further reinforcements that got called in. 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.400 We're basically able to bring it to a standoff. But 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:14.360 this this whole thing just raised tensions from simmering below 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.400 you know, the surface, to out and out right what 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.520 you would call a war between these tribes and the 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.959 Americans who were pressing into their land. So from that 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:29.840 moment on, it got way more difficult and scarier to 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:35.160 be a Pony Express rider. And as per Pony Express history, 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.679 this happened like ten weeks after the first rider disembarked. Yeah, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.800 so they I mean, not only did it cost them, 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.199 uh men, but it costs them about seventy five grand, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:48.640 and this is an eighteen sixty it's like to something 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.120 million today. Yeah, I mean that was a huge loss. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.880 So they started they ramped up their operation to try 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.679 and make up for that, and all of a sudden 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.559 they were delivering twice a week instead of once a week. Uh. 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.120 And they eventually tried to lower their prices too, but 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.760 it just none of it worked, and financially it was 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.280 a mess. Uh. Like I said earlier, they didn't really 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.079 keep a lot of records. They either didn't keep them 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.480 or they may have destroyed them. That's what I think, 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.160 to avoid creditors. Because these guys were not the greatest 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.800 well I don't know if they weren't the greatest businessman, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.840 but they surely didn't farewell in this case. Well, one 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.240 of them was supposedly an outright calm man Russell. Oh yeah, 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:29.080 yeah he was. He was supposedly he was the spokesperson 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.560 for this this business venture. And he was good at that, 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.600 but he was not, um, not a great stand up 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:38.080 guy as far as business is concerned. So the image 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:39.800 that you get in your head of Pony Express or 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:44.080 these guys riding full bore on these horses being chased 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:49.840 by Native Americans and desperados and uh, apparently all the 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:51.800 you know, many of the books over the years, even 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:57.680 ones that sound uh super official, a lot of times 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.200 were just made up stories when and we'll talk a 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:02.840 little bit about who finally got in touch with a 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:07.200 lot of these riders. But apparently when they were um 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.920 officially on record, they didn't talk a lot about fighting 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.400 the Native Americans or anyone. They talked about the weather, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.400 stinking about being ripped off and not being paid, uh, 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:22.920 sort of like normal business complaints. And it wasn't like 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.560 the thing that you see at the Wells Fargo Bank, like, yeah, 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.520 we rode horses fast, but it kind of sucked, right. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.400 But the thing is is like this, this was a 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.800 uh a legend in its own time, is how I've 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.840 seen it. Put Um, well, we'll talk about that after 0:15:39.840 --> 0:16:11.040 a break. How about that. Yeah, let's do it, okay. Um, 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.080 So Chuck. We said that, like the Pony Express was 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.240 the legend in sometime, and that's absolutely true. Like there 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:22.880 was again in part of William Russell's superior spokesperson ship. 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:28.240 I think is a word. Um they like newspapers wrote 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.520 about it in Sacramento. They called it there our friend 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.240 the pony Um. I think they were referring to drugs. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.120 I think they were talking about the Pony Express. But um, 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.480 like people love the Pony Express. It was it was 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.440 just hugely innovative and the idea that like these guys 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.000 were out there writing as fast as they can for 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:51.200 scores of miles with bandits on their tails, just to 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.240 bring us the mail. People fell in love with this thing. 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.280 Even though at the end of the day the thing 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:01.040 lasted like eighteen months, like the Only Express, it was 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.200 huge legend that we think of. It was an eighteen 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.800 month business venture that ultimately failed, right, but it was 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.119 a legend, um. And one of the reasons that was 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.720 a legends because there there were a um, I mean, 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.840 there were real deal exploits going on on the trail. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.720 There were some writers who were just amazing, Like one 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.840 guy was called, um, what was pony Bob's last name 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.840 has them, right, Pony Bob has them. He was one 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.840 of the riders for the Pony Express who ironically wasn't 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.000 as legendary as he should have been because he was 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.840 the actual real deal, But he ended up being forgotten 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:40.480 because I get the impression he wasn't much of a 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.800 self promoter. Yeah, he made a legendary documented journey of 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.119 three hundred and eighty miles without relief. At one point 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.720 where he basically road to road and road and road 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.320 went to his station to switch riders, and the guy 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.879 there was like, well, I'm not going, Like there's there's 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.239 indians out there trying to kill me. And so he 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.720 was like, all right, I'm gonna keep going. And he 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.119 kept going and delivered the mail and eventually made his 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:09.800 way back and and it ended up being a three 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.800 eight mile round trip. And he's, like I said, there's 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.360 not a lot of great documentation, but even though he's 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.840 been lost to history, he was very well documented as 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.879 an expert writer. Yeah, he definitely was. Um, there was 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.520 another one called Billy Fisher who had a pretty interesting 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.959 claim to fame. He was out riding on the trail 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.359 and um, it was during a snowstorm, so This is 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.000 another thing too. You said that the riders complained about 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.240 things like the terrible weather, like they were carrying mail 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:50.400 from um, let's see Missouri to Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, California. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.000 Some tough weather especially, say like in January, you're gonna 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.840 run into some terrible snowstorms, right. And Billy Fisher found 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.639 himself in one of these snowstorms and he first he 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.040 just dismounted. He's like, I just gotta go over here 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:06.919 and go to sleep for a little while in a blizzard. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:09.640 And um, he started to fall asleep, and he woke 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.280 up to something licking his face, and it was a 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:15.800 jack rabbit who had basically licked his face till he 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.040 woke up. I didn't know they licked. I think this 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.440 may have been his his spirit animal actually, uh. And 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.679 the rabbit like startled Billy Fisher, and Billy Fisher startled 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:28.760 the rabbit and the rabbit ran off, but it woke 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:30.800 Billy Fisher up, and he said, if that rabbit had 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:32.600 to lick my face and woke me up, I never 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:34.399 would have woken up. I would have just frozen to 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.080 death out there in this blizzard. But he was woken 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:39.440 up enough and realized the gravity of the situation enough 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.359 they got back on his horse and kept rioting to safety. Yeah. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.359 And to to top it off, his great great grandson 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.600 is William Fisher, who was one of the U S 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.840 astronauts who flew the Space Shuttle. So legend and these 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.480 stories are like going around and like being circulated in 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:01.760 newspapers and among people while the any expresses going on. Yeah, 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.800 I mean there were some very bad, uh not exploit 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.239 of sensationalist books written over the years. And then there 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:15.679 was also a couple of real legitimate dudes, Captain Sir 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:20.440 Richard Burton, the famous British explorer, and one Samuel Clemens, 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:25.160 twenty five year old future Mark Twain. They both individually 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.199 um kind of spent some time out there documenting the 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.960 Pony Express. And it seems like Burton didn't have a 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:34.200 good time out there. He didn't like the West. He 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.199 always complained about the flies and the fleas and just 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.119 the the filth and just the people. He just was 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.160 not a fan. But he still gave a fairly accurate 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:45.800 account of like the day to day of a Pony 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:50.480 Express writer. Clemens, Mr. The future Mark Twain seemed to 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:53.680 have a good time, and you know, in his true fashion, 0:20:54.119 --> 0:20:58.760 wrote some of the uh some really flower flowery eyewitness 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.240 testimony about seeing these horsemen coming across the tundra and 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:08.280 the planes. It's pretty cool. You're gonna read that? No, well, 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.960 everybody go read that. It's in um Roughing It, which 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.120 is his book about traveling the US, and he surfs 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.760 in it. Did you know that? I didn't. He goes 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.639 to Hawaii and tries surfing when they used to surf 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.640 on like ten ft long wooden boards. Your head clean off, 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.720 Go go read that quote in your in your best 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:32.280 hell hole brook impression. Really a good way to do it. 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:36.320 I'm more a Val Kilmer Mark Twain guy, That's right. 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.200 I forgot he did that. Everyone did, Chuck man. Um, 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.840 So you had Mark Twain and Captain Sir Richard Burton 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:51.360 providing like contemporary accounts. But that's like, that is virtually it. Right, 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.440 there were again this is a failed business venture. Let's 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:57.000 go ahead and tell him what happened? Why it was 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.680 failed business venture? Chuck? Why why ultimately died? Well, they 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.080 finally hooked up the two, They finally closed that gap 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:08.440 on the telegraph. They're like well, we can go coast 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:12.760 to coast now, so you're you're sort of immediately literally 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:16.320 immediately out of business. Yeah. The two days later they closed. 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:20.879 The first rider headed out on April third, eighteen sixty 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:24.639 and it was October twenty six of eighteen sixty one 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.439 where the last one headed out from St. Joe's. And 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:31.080 some people will say, well, it didn't actually stop in October. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.480 It was actually November because those machilas didn't end up 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.480 into in Sacramento until November. That's fine whatever. It was 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:43.520 like eighteen months seventies something weeks of Operation UM and 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.160 people loved it at the time. But as with most things, 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:51.640 once the new, better, greater thing came along the telegram, 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.320 they forgot about it pretty quick and we really honestly 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:58.919 would not have any recollection of the Pony Express. It 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.760 would be footnote to a footnote in history if it 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:07.760 weren't for one guy named Buffalo Bill Cody, who actually 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:11.120 is the reason why we all remember the Pony Express. 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:13.760 He had a soft spot in his heart for um, 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.000 not just the Pony Express itself, but one of um, 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:21.200 the founders. I think it was Alexander Major's, right, Yeah, 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:24.240 I think so. Who um, you gave me a job 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:26.000 when he was a kid. Gave him a job when 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:28.560 he was a kid. And while Bill um would go 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.840 on or Buffalo Bill would go on to uh to say, well, 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:35.520 I was actually a Pony Express writer. All historical evidence 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.760 suggests that that is not actually the case. But um, 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:43.160 he definitely did work for Alexander Majors, who was one 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:46.000 of the owners of the Pony Express as a horseback messenger, 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:48.640 just not a Pony Express writer, which if you're talking 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.960 about Pony Express legend, that's a major distinction. Yeah. And 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:54.679 Buffalo Bill would also go on to say she's a 0:23:54.720 --> 0:24:02.800 great brick front girl. Sorry, it's he called Buffalo Bill. Yeah, okay. 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:05.760 I always, for some reason I thought it was a 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:09.320 playoff of Buffalo Bill, like Buffalo Bob or something like that. No, 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:14.359 it was Buffalo Bill because he skinned his victims. I remember, Uh, 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:17.680 should we take a break? Geez? Okay, sure, alright, let's 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:19.280