West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride Of The Pony Express, DeFelice - B

                                                The Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Company was founded in 1860 by Russell, Majors & Waddell, a company on the threshold of becoming a western freighting and delivery empire. It was known as the Pony and it delivered mail and telegraph messages for a period of only 18 months. It never made a penny and was created for the publicity it would garner and would, hopefully, earn the owners the $1M contract to take mail by coach to California.  It could move information from St. Joseph, MO to Sacramento in ten days. Each rider rode about seventy miles of the 1750-mile trail. He changed horses at way  stations every 10 or 15 miles. The job paid $50 per month plus room and board. The help wanted ad allegedly said: "Wanted. Young , skinny, wiry fellas not over eighteen. Must be expert riders willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred." Although there were Indians and horse thieves about, the greatest danger  the drivers faced was from the weather. Division One of the ride ended at Ft. Kearny. Then the route followed the N. Platte River across what is now western Nebraska and eastern Colorado up to Ft. Laramie. From there, the trail, which paralleled the Oregon Trail, went west through Wyoming and through the South Pass. Twenty-miles wide, the pass afforded a route through the Rockies neither exceedingly cold nor warm. Slightly south and a bit of a descent from the mountains was a city two miles wide.  Salt Lake City was the only urban way station on the route west. Now the riders were in the desert. It stretched over 500 miles and rose over two thousand feet to Virginia City before the riders entered the Sierras, where a substantial way station was above Lake Tahoe. The Pony added a few days to its schedule in the winter, although it was a miracle they got through at all. The highest point on the trail in the Sierras was over 9,000 feet. The news reaching California of Lincoln's election took six days and sixteen hours from St. Joe. Meanwhile, in Washington, one of the firm's partners was accused of defrauding Congress, but escaped on a technicality. War was imminent, the mail contract was awarded, and the company got a piece of the action, but turned the running of the Pony over to Wells Fargo. On Oct. 24, 1861 the final telegraph link connecting east to west was completed and the Pony went out of business. There had been 308 runs and only one lost mailbag.
                                                This is a fun, brief book that is a tour of the west, discussing people who were along the way. For example there are sections  on the famous, like Bill Cody, Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, various discourses on states, rivers and quite a bit on the Mormons and plenty of people we've never heard of. The theme, though, is the ride in November, 1860 carrying west the news of Lincoln's election. Side trips into national politics are also here. I think this would be enjoyed by serious students of the west.