The Story of the Pony Express | Page 3

the Pacific, a power
which would, perchance, forcibly absorb the entire Southwest and a
large section of Northern Mexico. By thus creating counter forces the
South would effectively block the Federal Government on the western
half of the continent.
The North also desired the prestige that would come from holding
California as well as the material strength inherent in the state's
valuable resources. Moreover to hold this region would give the North
a base of operations to check her opponent in any campaign of
aggression in the far West, should the South presume such an attempt.
And the possession of California would also offer to the North the very
best means of protecting the Western frontier, one of the Union's most
vulnerable points of attack.
It was with such vital conditions that the Pony Express was identified;
it was in retaining California for the Union, and in helping incidentally
to preserve the Union, that the Express became an important factor in
American history.
Not to mention the romance, the unsurpassed courage, the unflinching
endurance, and the wonderful exploits which the routine operations of
the Pony Express involved, its identity with problems of nation-wide
and world-wide importance make its story seem worth telling. And
with its romantic existence and its place in history the succeeding pages
of this book will briefly deal.

Chapter II

Inception and Organization of the Pony Express

Following the discovery of gold in California in January 1848, that
region sprang into immediate prominence. From all parts of the country
and the remote corners of the earth came the famous Forty-niners.
Amid the chaos of a great mining camp the Anglo-Saxon love of law
and order soon asserted itself. Civil and religious institutions quickly
arose, and, in the summer of 1850, a little more than a year after the big
rush had started, California entered the Union as a free state.
The boom went on and the census of 1860 revealed a population of
380,000 in the new commonwealth. And when to these figures were
added those of Oregon and Washington Territory, an aggregate of
444,000 citizens of the United States were found to be living on the
Pacific Slope. Crossing the Sierras eastward and into the Great Basin,
47,000 more were located in the Territories of Nevada and Utah, - thus
making a grand total of nearly a half million people beyond the Rocky
Mountains in 1860. And these figures did not include Indians nor
Chinese.
Without reference to any military phase of the problem, this detached
population obviously demanded and deserved adequate mail and
transportation facilities. How to secure the quickest and most
dependable communication with the populous sections of the East had
long been a serious proposition. Private corporations and Congress had
not been wholly insensible to the needs of the West. Subsidized stage
routes had for some years been in operation, and by the close of 1858
several lines were well-equipped and doing much business over the
so-called Southern and Central routes. Perhaps the most common route
for sending mail from the East to the Pacific Coast was by steamship
from New York to Panama where it was unloaded, hurried across the
Isthmus, and again shipped by water to San Francisco. All these lines
of traffic were slow and tedious, a letter in any case requiring from
three to four weeks to reach its destination. The need of a more rapid
system of communication between the East and West at once became
apparent and it was to supply this need that the Pony Express really

came into existence.
The story goes that in the autumn of 1854, United States Senator
William Gwin of California was making an overland trip on horseback
from San Francisco to Washington, D. C. He was following the Central
route via Salt Lake and South Pass, and during a portion of his journey
he had for a traveling companion, Mr. B. F. Ficklin, then General
Superintendent for the big freighting and stage firm of Russell, Majors,
and Waddell of Leavenworth. Ficklin, it seems, was a resourceful and
progressive man, and had long been engaged in the overland
transportation business. He had already conceived an idea for
establishing a much closer transit service between the Missouri river
and the Coast, but, as is the case with many innovators, had never
gained a serious hearing. He had the traffic agent's natural desire to
better the existing service in the territory which his line served; and he
had the ambition of a loyal employee to put into effect a plan that
would bring added honor and preferment to his firm. In addition to
possessing these worthy ideals, it is perhaps not unfair to state that
Ficklin was personally ambitious.
Nevertheless, Ficklin confided his scheme enthusiastically to Senator
Gwin, at the same time pointing