The Pony Express begins its first run…
April 1860 CE
The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific coast had been prompted largely by California's newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population.
After gold was discovered there in 1848, thousands of prospectors, investors and businessmen made their way to California, at that time a new territory of the U.S.
By 1850, California entered the Union as a free state, and by 1860, the population has grown to 380,000.
The demand for a faster way to get mail and other communications to and from this westernmost state becomes even greater as the American Civil War approaches.
William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell, the three founders of the Pony Express, were already in the freighting and drayage business in the late 1850s.
At the peak of the operations, they employ six thousand men, own seventy-five thousand oxen, thousands of wagons, and warehouses plus a sawmill, a meatpacking plant, a bank and an insurance company.
Russell is a prominent businessman and Waddell was co-owner of the firm Morehead, Waddell & Co.
After Morehead was bought out and retired, Waddell had merged his company with Russell's, changing the name to Waddell & Russell.
In 1855 they took on a new partner, Alexander Majors, and founded the company of Russell, Majors & Waddell.
They held government contracts for delivering army supplies to the western frontier, and Russell had a similar idea for contracts with the U.S. Government for fast mail delivery.
By utilizing a short route and using mounted riders rather than traditional stagecoaches, they proposed to establish a fast mail service between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with letters delivered in ten days, a duration many have said is impossible.
The initial price is set at $5 per 1⁄2 ounce (14 g), then $2.50, and by July 1861 to $1.
The founders of the Pony Express hope to win an exclusive government mail contract, but that will not come about.
Russell, Majors, and Waddell had organized and put together the Pony Express in two months in the winter of 1860.
The undertaking had assembled one hundred and twenty riders, one hundred and eighty-four stations, four hundred horses, and several hundred personnel during January and February 1860.
Majors is a religious man and has resolved "by the help of God" to overcome all difficulties.
He has presented each rider with a special edition Bible and requires this oath, which they are also required to sign:
"I, ... , do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God."
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