Sarah Fessler, age 10, Nashville, Tenn., or her question;

What was the Pony Express?

The: Pony Express is a poetic name for an old time postal service. It is poetic because no real ponies took part in the speedy operation. The job was done by relays of fast horses in the prime of life. Each was galloped at top speed for from ten to fifteen miles. The lone rider traveled light, carrying no more than one or two pouches of mail.

Horseback mail service was used in the Eastern States way back in 1839. By this method, a letter mailed in Maine could be expected to arrive in Georgia ten days later. But distances to the Golden West were long and hazardous. To solve this postal problem, the Overland Mail Service was started 99 years ago. Easterners could then correspond with friends on the west coast, At first the mail was jolted along in light wagons. Later it rode on the rumbling wheels of the stagecoaches.

Events were moving fast in our history and California was in the news. The stagecoach mail was not fast enough to keep up with. the times. Remember, 100 years ago cross‑country railroads were a dream. There was no radio to flash the news, no telephone and even the telegraph was not quite ready. The U.S. Postal authorities remembered the old horseback mail seryice in the east. And the idea of the Pony Express to the west was born.

Mail to the lNest was fast enough as .far as the Missouri river. More speed was needed over the prairies and the mountains. Here a single horseman could outdistance the fastest of stagecoaches. And so, in 1860, the Pony Express was begun. Fast horses were gathered and stabled at points along the road. V`Tayside stations were built ten to fifteen miles apart all along the way.

The mailmen were the young and vigorous pioneers of the day, Each rode a relay of 75 to 100 miles with all his might, He changed horses at each wayside station where he was allowed a two minute rest. The long, fast relay began at St. Joseph, Missouri and ended at the west coast. A letter mailed in St. Louis was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco ten days later. But the riders vied with each other for records. The thundering hoofs of the Pony Express relayed President Lincoln1s inaugural address from the Missouri to the Pacific in seven days and 17 hours,

Pony Express mail cost three times as much as stagecoach mail. It was written on thin paper and wrapped in oiled silk to protect it from the weather. It was packaged in a leather pouch worn as a saddle bag and tossed from one relay rider to the next,

Eighteen months after the start of this wonderful adventure, the east and west were linked with a telegraph line. The Pony Express was no longer needed and it was discontinued. In its short history, those mailmen had riden through rough terrain, rough weather, hostile Indians ‑ and ‑ delivered the mail. Looking back, we take pride in the Pony Express. It remains as part of the glamorous and heroic story of America.