A Modern Rider's Legendary Journey: Retracing the Pony Express Trail

On April 3, 1860, the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company launched the Pony Express mail service — front-page news in papers from New York to San Francisco. In California especially, people hailed it as a crucial step in linking the far West to the rest of the United States. Its pitch: deliver mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in 10 days via a relay of fast horses. Stations spaced every 10 to 20 miles supplied fresh mounts so the mail could fly across the West.

The Pony Express is one of the most colorful chapters of American horsemanship in the history books, but it didn't last long. Nearly 190 stations had to be supplied with horses, supplies, and stockkeepers, and 15 of them had no viable water source — every drop for horses and men had to be hauled in by mule cart. Mail ran twice each way every week, and a year in, every dollar earned cost five to operate. The bill was simply too steep, and on October 26, 1861, the Pony Express shut down. Its legacy, though, ran far deeper. As writer William Banning put it in his 1928 book Six Horses, it's hard to name anything that contributed more glamor to Western history in a shorter time than the brief Pony Express.

In 2019, the route took on new meaning for me. I've been a rider since childhood, and I've long believed the best way to see this country is from the back of a horse. I wanted to move slowly along the old trail, meet the people along the way, and fill in the blanks on my mental map. What the original Pony Express riders covered in 10 days — about 2,000 miles — I planned to spend a whole summer doing. On May 5, I set off from St. Joseph with two good horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, heading for Sacramento.

What followed was hard work and intimate contact with nature. I camped at old Pony Express station sites, in farmers' yards, on ranchers' grazing land, and in the dry, silent desert valleys. Boots, shirts, and half a dozen wool socks wore out — but my horses stayed strong. On September 22, when I reached the foot of the Pony Express rider bronze at the old wharf in Sacramento, their eyes were bright and their coats shone.

Looking back, retracing the Pony Express trail was not just a chase after history but a search for the seam between the modern West and its past. It let me see the American West from an angle I couldn't have otherwise, and feel how history and the present blend on this land. Maybe in our fast-paced era we, too, need to slow down — to feel the temperature of history and notice the landscapes and stories we usually miss.

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