Pony Express Historic Resource Study

OPERATION OF THE PONY EXPRESS, 1860

Critics of the central overland route predicted that weather conditions (especially winter conditions) along the route would cause delays for the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. Perhaps to avoid an unsettling beginning to their new enterprise, Russell, Majors, and Waddell decided to the start the Pony Express in the springtime. Despite the springtime start, the first rider from Sacramento to St. Joseph encountered four-foot-deep snow in crossing the Sierra Nevada, and it looked as though adverse weather conditions would defeat the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. from the outset. Fortunately for the rider, a narrow mule-path created by pack-trains on their way from California to the Washoe mines opened the way for him. The rider was delayed by only a few hours, [46] indicating to many that the Pony Express could conquer the critics of the central overland route.

During the rest of the month of April, the Pony Express operated as its creators had planned. An added feature of the early days of the Pony Express was that telegraph messages could be transmitted to Miller's Station (30 miles from Carson City) in the west, if the customer missed the deadline for presenting letters to company agents. This gave about a twenty-seven hour window of opportunity for San Francisco customers. [47]

At the end of April, slight schedule changes were made in the operation that moved the Friday nine a.m. St. Joseph departure to either Saturday at eleven p.m. or to Sunday at nine or eleven a.m. But other than this uncertain time change, which was made to accommodate telegraphing schedules, nothing seemed out of order. [48] The operation ran smoothly. One source suggested that if the route continued to prove successful, a shorter route would be adopted for the next season. The proposed new route ran directly from the Missouri River to Pike's Peak, and from there through South Pass to Salt Lake City, "nearly a straight line." [49]

During the initial month of operation, Russell, Majors, and Waddell were highly pleased even though the patronage for the service did not even come close to meeting their expenses. Californians quickly looked at the numbers of letters being sent and the cost of the operation and quickly recognized this disparity. [50] However, they assumed that Russell, Majors, and Waddell had not started the Express to make money, but to "get a mail contract over the route traversed by it." They thought that the federal government should appreciate the "advantages" of the Pony Express, especially since the War Department used it to send messages to the Commanding General of the Pacific Division concerning troop movements in Oregon. [51] According to a San Franciscan recipient of a letter via Pony Express, the enterprise was a "brilliant success," binding together the Atlantic and the Pacific states. [52]

So successful did the Pony Express appear during the first few weeks of operation, that it was rumored as early as April 14, 1860, that the Butterfield Overland Mail Company or Overland Mail Company planned on starting their own horse express to compete with Russell, Majors, and Waddell. Reportedly, the Butterfield express proposed covering the 1,500 miles between Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Los Angeles in five or six days, and transmitting telegraph messages between these two points. [53] Not to be outdone, C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. agents confidently promised they would compete by establishing a similar enterprise reaching California in four and a half days, whether or not the telegraph was extended further westward from St. Joseph, Missouri. Of course, Californians welcomed this competitive challenge and the constant shortening of the time between them and the East. California newspapers encouraged people to patronize the Pony Express for the "good" of California. [54]

The operation of the Pony Express appeared to be going so well, that on May 11, 1860, Postmaster General James Holt, annulled George Chorpenning's mail contract and gave it to the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. Prior to this date, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. carried the mail to Salt Lake City, where Chorpenning picked it up and delivered it to Sacramento by coaches and mules over the high mountain passes during the winter. Presumably, Holt was discontent with Chorpenning's service on the contract. This gave Russell, Majors, and Waddell the complete government mail/passenger contract from St. Joseph to Sacramento, which paid about $260,000 per annum. [55] It is not clear from the historical literature whether or not the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. acquired or bought out Chorpenning's outfit and stations between Salt Lake City and Sacramento at this time.

Pyramid Lake War

People were charmed with the success of the Pony Express. Critics of the central overland route had expected that weather—violent storms, furious blizzards, blinding snows—or harsh terrain—immense mountain ranges, trackless wastes of sand and sagebush—or the physical hardships of being in the saddle for seventy-five or a hundred miles would defeat the Pony Express. These problems did not seem to daunt the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. operation. What confounded the operation of the Pony Express was the outbreak of the Pyramid Lake War, an event that no one foresaw or could have predicted. Nevertheless, the consequences of this incident crippled the operation of the Pony Express in May 1860 and for many months afterwards.

The circumstances leading to the Pyramid Lake War are these: After July 1859, when a major silver deposit was discovered in the Washoe hills, a great gold and silver rush ensued. By April 3, 1860, when the Pony Express began, the excitement continued as hundreds of miners looking to discover riches poured into the region from all parts of California and elsewhere. The entry of so many people into the mineral region, that extended for 100 miles or more, naturally brought prospectors into conflict with the native inhabitants. Prospectors trespassed on Indian land, encroached on their limited resources of land, water, and feed, creating tensions between the Indians and the invading population, especially after the severe winter of 1859-1860. [56] In many respects, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. was guilty of the same charges. The Pony Express also trespassed on Indian land as well. There is no record that the land upon which the stations were built, or even the corridor for the route across vast tracts of Indian territory, was ever purchased by agreement or treaty from the local inhabitants. Furthermore, in the desert areas, station sites were located at critical watering holes, thereby usurping this limited resource from the native inhabitants. For these reasons, conflicts between Indians and the trespassing riders, and stationkeepers working for the Pony Express was probably inevitable.

For the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co., trouble with Indians and delays on the route were foreshadowed in late April 1860. During the April 18th St. Joseph to Sacramento run, the transportation of the express was detained six hours because Indians had driven off the pony rider's horses at Roberts Creek Station. [57] This incident should have forewarned Russell, Majors, and Waddell that isolated stations in the Nevada-Utah deserts were quite vulnerable to Indian depredations. That lesson came in early May.

On May 7, 1860, an incident at the Williams Station in Carson Valley set off what became known as the Pyramid Lake War. There are several versions of what exactly happened to begin this conflict. [58] According to one contemporary newspaper account, J.O. Williams and his brothers abused an Indian woman. According to this explanation:

an old Indian man went to Williams' house with a squaw, when four white men tied the buck Indian, and then each committed an atrocious outrage upon the Indian woman. They then let the buck go. He afterwards came back with other Indians, and put a white woman, who was in the house, out of doors, and also three white men who had nothing to do with the outrage. They then bound the four white men who abused the squaw, and burned them in the house. [59]

The reaction of the miners and settlers was immediate. Fearing a general uprising against white settlements, and also seeking revenge for a supposed affront, volunteers were "formed into military companies" with the idea of "ridding the area" of all the Indians. The Indians were eventually defeated and forced to withdraw at Pyramid Lake, but not until they had ambushed a "motley group of volunteers" under Major William Ormsby, killing seventy-six and wounding twenty-nine men. [60]

Thereafter, Indian raids occurred throughout the Nevada-Utah desert, aimed particularly at easy targets such as Pony Express stations. [61] First, several Americans were killed at Miller's Station, thirty miles east of the settlements on the Carson River. [62] Next, on Monday, May 21, 1860, Indians menaced Smith's Creek Station. Because of fear of an Indian attack, the Pony Express rider from Reese River to Carson delayed his ride at Smith Creek for thirty-six hours. At Simpson Park Station, on that same day and only a few miles east of Smith's Creek Station, Indians killed the stationkeeper, burned the station to the ground and drove off the stock. A short time after this attack, three persons associated with the Dry Creek Station were killed by Indians, and somewhere along this portion of the line two riders may have been killed as well. [63] Ironically, because the depredations disrupted service on the Pony Express route, the disturbing news of all these attacks on C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. stations was brought East via the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. [64]

William W. Finney, the San Francisco company agent, acted as quickly as possible in the crisis. First, Finney implored the government to send armed troops to secure the stations against further Indian attacks. Without this protection, Finney feared operation of the Pony Express would have to be interrupted, and the stations vulnerable to attack abandoned. Despite the urgency of the plea, officials of the Pacific Division of the Army regretted that they could not supply a guard because they did not have the means. [65]

In the midst of these troubles, for an unknown reason besides bravado on the part of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. announced that starting on June 13, 1860, the company would run the Pony Express on a semi weekly basis. The schedule for the new service changed to meet this demand. The new schedule stated that the Pony Express would leave St. Joseph every Wednesday and Saturday at 11 p.m. after the arrival of the eastern mail express by train. [66] Despite this announcement, the semi-weekly schedule was not implemented.

Meanwhile, faced with no other choice, Finney ordered a temporary suspension of the operation of the Pony Express between Carson Valley and Salt Lake City because of the Indian depredations. [67] With military assistance from the Pacific Division unavailable, Finney next tried to re-open the route from Carson City to Salt Lake City on his own. With contributions raised from San Francisco and Sacramento [68] (both cities that had a vested interest in the continued operation of the Pony Express), Finney outfitted and supplied a force of volunteers to secure the stations. During the first week of June, with a company of a twenty or so "well-armed" and "tried" men, Finney set out eastward toward Salt Lake City.

Their mission was to resupply and rebuild the destroyed stations, thereby reopening the route. [69]

While Finney approached from the west, a similar effort was made from Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, going westward. Unlike Finney's effort, this effort apparently had a twenty-five man United States troop escort attached to it. Unlike the Pacific Division of the War Department, it seems that the War Department in Washington saw the value of the Pony Express. They ordered the commander at Camp Floyd to place a patrol guard along the entire route from Salt Lake City to the Carson Valley. [70] By the end of June, the two groups completed their mission and met at Sand Springs Station. Afterwards, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. placed at each station along this portion of the route five additional men, who rebuilt and guarded the corrals and stations. They used stone and adobe materials, where available, to fortify the facilities. [71]

While Indian troubles closed the Pony Express route from Diamond Springs to the Carson Valley throughout June, [72]the Pony Express continued to make runs between St. Joseph and Salt Lake City. The distance from Salt Lake City to St. Joseph was 1,200 miles, and the Pony Express covered it in approximately five and half days. Maintaining this portion of the service brought little revenue to the company because the contents of the mochillas leaving Salt Lake City contained very few letters. [73]

On June 25, 1860, almost a month since the Indian depredations began, the first pony rider from the East reached San Francisco without delay. Californians once again had the pleasure of receiving news via Pony Express. [74] Later, on July 8, 1860, approximately one hundred letters from San Francisco and thirty-one letters from Sacramento made their way across the continent on the return trip. [75]

These letters did not speed across the Nevada-Utah deserts because government troops escorted the pony riders on the journey. The troop escorts slowed the swift Pony Express to a mere forty miles a day. These delays continued throughout the month of July 1860. [76]

Back on Track?

With the Pony Express back in service, Californians hoped that the government would subsidize this deserving private enterprise. They feared that without this federal aid, those daring spirits who risked their lives carrying a "sack of letters" across the continent would be unprotected and in danger. Therefore, many Californians supported a bill in Congress authorizing the postmaster general to support the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. with $2,000 per month for weekly trips and $3,000 per month for semi-weekly trips. William H. Russell assured everyone that the Pony Express would be maintained whether or not this bill passed. The bill failed much to the disappointment of Russell and his partners. [77]

Despite Russell's assurance, rumors abounded that the Pony Express was in deep financial trouble and that it would soon be discontinued altogether. [78] These rumors were partly true. The recent Indian disturbances that interrupted the regular service cost the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. upwards of $75,000—more money than it cost the company to set up the system. This figure included the loss of stock, the cost of rebuilding stations, and the "extra expense incurred by the hiring of fifty men at fifty dollars per month to guard the Pony Express during the brief period while the Indian troubles were at their height." Much of the high cost was due in part to construction of "fortress" stations in the Nevada desert. These new stations were "60 feet square, with stone walls eight feet high, being designed to serve as forts when necessary." Whatever the cost, Russell, Majors, and Waddell saw the importance of keeping the route active. During the Indian crisis Russell telegraphed orders to clear the route at any expense. Aware of their fiscal dilemma, Majors and Waddell sent Russell to Washington, D.C., to convince government officials, especially Postmaster General Holt, to give a small government contract to the company "to keep the Pony Express from going down altogether." [79]

Russell tried to allay public fears regarding the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. financial state by publicly addressing them with bravado and half-truths. In the New York Times, Russell stated that the Pony Express was "running semi weekly from each end of the route, and will arrive 'regularly' hereafter, as the Indian difficulties have been suppressed by Government troops." [80] But only weeks after his statement, Indian depredations again disrupted service over the central mail route.

This time the trouble began at Egan Canyon, and affected the Schell Creek and Dry Creek Stations as well. [81] The San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin described the attack in full detail. On August 11, 1860, several hundred Indians came to the Egan Canyon Station, and according to the newspaper, demanded:

some powder and lead of the men in charge of the station, which they refused to let them have as a matter of course. They then wanted some provisions, and the men gave them two sacks of flour, and some sugar and coffee. One of the men then started out after the animals kept at that place, when the Indians told him that he could not go, and that they would take care of the animals themselves, and commenced singing and hallooing at a great rate. At that instant Lieutenant Weed, with twenty-five soldiers, came up and attacked the Indians, who returned the fire, wounding three men. . . .The Indians fled without driving off any of the stock. About the same time, six or eight Indians went to where some men were mowing, near Deep Creek, and ordered them away, but went off without molesting them further. They came back next morning, when four soldiers, who had secreted themselves in a wagon, fired on them, wounding two mortally. The others fled. [82]

On the next day, the Indians made an attack on Schell Creek Station east of Egan Canyon Station. Two parties of Indians made a surprise attack, but no one was killed or wounded here. Thereafter, the Indians surrounded the station and drove off part of the stock. About a half an hour after the attack, Lieutenant Weed of the United States Army arrived, attacked and killed seventeen of the Indians, wounding many more. [83] Unlike the May 1860 attacks, the station employees were prepared for these aggressions. In late July, the Acting Adjutant General in Utah had issued 100 revolvers and 800 cartridges to the Pony Express agent in Salt Lake City, who distributed them to the riders in order to defend themselves against Indian attack. [84]

California newspapers hoped that these latest difficulties would not deter the efforts of the Pony Express, nor prevent merchants and businessmen from patronizing this private enterprise. [85] Nevertheless, by late August, Russell, Majors, and Waddell appear to have grown wary about continuing their unprofitable and financially draining venture—most likely because of the recent Indian depredations and the cost of protecting the stations in Nevada. In a company meeting, they decided to continue the operations until January 1861. By then, if Congress refused to patronize the route, they resolved to abandon the enterprise altogether. [86]

Pressure to make that fateful decision came in mid-October, when rumors abounded that the federal government would not automatically renew the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.'s contract to carry the mail from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City. Ostensibly, when Russell, Majors, and Waddell's contract expired on November 30, 1860, Postmaster General Holt contemplated the idea of establishing yet a new mail route from Omaha to to Salt Lake City. [87]

When this news became public, the New York Times reproached President Buchanan for even considering cutting off the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. mail contract, and awarding it to another party. [88] The San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin openly supported the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.'s as well, pointing out that "besides Californians, other large classes of people will be injured by the breaking up of the Placerville to St. Joseph mail, including the large numbers of Americans in the mining regions of Nevada and Colorado whose only means of direct communication was the Pony Express." [89]

Russell, in conversations and a letter printed in the Sacramento Daily Union and the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin stated that if the federal government failed to renew C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.'s contract, then they would discontinue the Pony Express out of necessity. Russell stated that he was convinced that if the Pony Express had not been interrupted by Indian conflicts, it would be paying for itself. All he asked was for a "regular, reasonable mail contract, which would justify them in stocking the road, building convenient stations, and keeping open the communication line." Once the Pony Express was broken up, Russell publicly doubted that another party would invest money on such an uncertainty. At the end of his letter, Russell added that the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. had attained its principal object, that of "demonstrating that the [central mail] route is feasible and practical." [90]

Russell's comments revealed the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.'s concerns. Simply put, the Pony Express could not pay for itself without the federal mail/passenger contract to subsidize and pay for its expenses. Fortunately for the firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, the Post Office Department renewed their St. Joseph to Salt Lake City mail/passenger contract on October 28, 1860. [91]

Meanwhile, in order to demonstrate the importance and viability of the Pony Express to the country, Russell, Majors, and Waddell determined in late October 1860 (before renewing their contract) to make special arrangements to carry November's election news to California as swiftly as possible. Telegraph lines originating from the east had been progressed at approximately twenty miles a day from St. Joseph. By election day of 1860, the telegraph was expected to reach to Ft. Kearney. Russell, Majors, and Waddell decided to carry the telegraphic dispatch of the election from Ft. Kearney via Pony Express to the wire service at Fort Churchill (east of Carson City) in a projected five days. Riders along the entire line of stations between these two points were given notice to be ready and on the alert for this special run. [92]

Fortunately for Russell, Majors, and Waddell, everything went according to plan. At 1:00 p.m. on November 7, 1860, a special Pony Express left Ft. Kearney carrying the news of the election of President Abraham Lincoln. The rider and the horse were decorated with ribbons and departed amid a large and enthusiastic gathering. [93] The special Pony Express arrived in Salt Lake City in three days and four hours, despite heavy snows in the area. [94] The memorable ride carrying the news of Lincoln's election traveled to San Francisco within the projected five days. Almost immediately in text and by lithograph, the event was praised as one of the most significant accomplishments of the Pony Express. [95]

Following this special event, regular service resumed along the route. By the end of December 1860, nearly 1,200 letters had been sent from California eastward, while approximately 400 were received from the East. Patronage had nearly doubled since August, when the last Indian troubles occurred. By January 1861, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.'s business prospects appeared brighter. [96]

Still, there were problems. Facing its first real test of operating in the winter, the C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co. backed away from its normal operating schedule. The company informed the public that after the 1st of December and during the winter, New York news would be fifteen days in transit to San Francisco and eleven days between telegraph stations. [97] Actually, Russell had hoped to convince Postmaster General Holt that the Pony Express could carry the mail through to California on a daily or a tri-weekly basis that winter. He even offered to bond the service, and if it were delayed or his company failed, he would forfeit these bonds. Holt remained unconvinced. Consequently, out of financial considerations, Russell, Majors, and Waddell reduced their Pony Express schedule during the winter of 1860-1861. [98]

It was fortunate that Holt had not accepted Russell's offer. The first full winter for the Pony Express tested the system to the extreme. Significant delays occurred. During December, heavy snows hit the Sierra Nevada region. Fortunately, the roads through the passes of the Sierra Nevadas were made passable by the constant passage of teams to and from the Washoe mines. This constant traffic aided in keeping the route open for the Pony Express. Unfortunately, when these same storms extended to the mountainous portions of the route in the Great Basin, and the trackless desolate regions between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, they became unbreachable obstacles. [99] Inevitably, as the snows piled up, they delayed the Pony Express. A single horseman could barely break passage through the unbroken winter snowfields. By mid-January, heavy snows covered nearly the entire route from California to Missouri, delaying the passage of the Pony Express by two days. [100] By the end of January, additional bad storms in the mountains caused a four-day delay for the entire operation. [101]

The winter storms proved that the Pony Express could not endure a harsh winter and still maintain a regular schedule. Without a line of stagecoaches daily breaking trail, the snows proved an insurmountable obstacle for the lone horseman. In this severe and final test, winter won. If this defeat was not enough to confront that winter, the firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell faced new troubles that spelled the ultimate demise of the Pony Express—serious criminal charges against William H. Russell for stealing bonds from the Interior Department to support and maintain their Pony Express business.

Indian depredations and weather—these undermined the effective operation of the Pony Express and presented difficult obstacles to overcome. But the financial scandal clinched the end of the Pony Express and brought about its eventual end.