Pony Express Reenactment Spurs Multigenerational Interest
Pony Express Rides Again and Again
On April 3, 1860, a celebratory crowd in downtown St. Joseph, Missouri, whooped and hollered as a young man on a horse with saddlebags stuffed with mail raced down dusty Penn Street toward a ferry that would take him across the Missouri River. Ten days and almost 2,000 miles later, another Pony Express rider trotted into Sacramento, California, carrying the same saddlebags full of mail. The first Pony Express ride was a success.
On June 17, 2024, a crowd at the same historic location in St. Joseph cheered as a young woman on a horse started on the same historic route with saddlebags full of letters. The rider and an honor guard clip-clopped through St. Joe's streets and over a four-lane bridge across the Missouri River. Ten days later and right on time, another rider trotted into Sacramento and delivered the same saddlebags of letters. The annual re-ride by the National Pony Express Association (NPEA) had delivered the mail again.
NPEA has 700 to 800 members whose annual re-rides keep alive the romance and the history of the Pony Express. The romance springs from the image of daring young horsemen racing across the vast western half of the continent to deliver bags of mail. The history recognizes the significance of the Pony Express riders, because the mail they carried united the new state of California to the rest of the nation, which was on the verge of a civil war. Today, the NPEA is a dedicated multigenerational organization, says Larry Carpenter, NPEA's corresponding secretary. "Our riders are grandmothers, grandfathers, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters."
MULTIGENERATIONS
On the Kansas side of the Missouri River bridge in Elwood, a cluster of horses, trailers, riders and families stood under a hot sun waiting for the arrival of first rider Penny Orrick, of Easton, Missouri. Kids played with toy farm animals in the shade of a gooseneck trailer as parents and grandparents donned riding gear and fiddled with saddle cinches. Newly arriving members of the Kansas contingent of NPEA hopped out of pickups to greet and hug comrades they hadn't seen in a year. Some were the third generation to take part in a re-ride.
Among the riders waiting in Elwood was Jake McCracken, 42, who is a saddle maker, farrier and horse breeder from Dawn, Missouri. "I originally got in the re-ride because this old guy my dad shoed horses for was in it," McCracken says. "Every year I'd ask him, 'What does a guy have to do to be a Pony Express rider?' And, every year he'd tell me, 'You have to wait for somebody to die off.' In 2003, he asked me if I still wanted to ride, and I said, 'Sure. Who died?' I've ridden in it almost every year since."
McCracken's niece Halli Anderson, 16, rode this year. His daughter, Reata McCracken, is only 11 and, since riders must be at least 14, she couldn't carry the mail this year. But, she did participate as a buddy rider.
When first rider Orrick arrived from St. Joe, the Kansas horseman designated as second rider grabbed her custom-made saddlebag (called a mochila), threw it over his saddle and set out at a trot into countryside back roads. A mile or so down the road, another cluster of horse trailers and riders waited, and another horseman snatched the mochila and took off down the road. The relay of replacement horses and riders would continue across eight states and eventually involve more than 600 riders and their mounts trotting and cantering westward at 10 to 12 miles per hour in 1- to 5-mile segments 24 hours a day.
Also among the gathering in Elwood were David Sanner and his wife, Melva, of Blue Rapids, Kansas. David, 69, would ride nine 1- to 2-mile segments that first day; Melva would drive a pilot vehicle to alert motorists that a horseback rider was coming. The Sanner family caravan included horse trailers, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It would traverse 67 miles that first day on a route that is as close as possible to the original Pony Express route.
The NPEA's re-ride tradition began in 1978 on only portions of the trail. Bolstered by its success, in 1980, the re-riders finally dared the entire Missouri-California route. David Sanner's father became a rider in 1982. One year later, David joined him. In 2024, two of David's daughters and his 24-year-old grandson donned the Pony Express uniform (blue jeans, red shirt, yellow kerchief and brown vest) and rode across eastern Kansas. "In a few years, I will have some great-granddaughters riding," David says.
Melva wasn't crazy about the idea at the beginning. She got into horseback riding by accident, she says with a laugh: "I married a guy with horses." But, when David became involved in the Pony Express, she did too. Eventually, she became the first female Kansas Pony Express rider. She and David have each been national president of NPEA three terms.
"We somehow just worked into it, and now it is a part of our lives," she says.
ORIGINS
Of course, the Pony Express originally was about commerce, not family traditions. The entrepreneurial owners of the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Co. figured they could make a healthy profit by charging $5 per half-ounce to transport mail to and from the nation's western outposts. The only mail-delivery alternatives were ships (many months) and freight wagons (several weeks). When the Express Company said it could get mail from Missouri to California in 10 days, what it was selling was speed. It was like the builders of the Concorde supersonic jetliner more than a century later bragging they could get passengers from New York to Paris in three hours instead of eight.
For a brief time, it looked like the Express Company's big gamble would pay off. But, establishing, manning and running a network of Pony Express stables across 2,000 miles proved costly. So did hiring willing and able riders. It's unclear whether Pony Express ever turned a profit.
Even if it did, progress in the form of telegraph lines quickly killed it. Telegraph poles and wires finally linked California and Missouri in early 1861. Suddenly, words traversed the immense distance in seconds instead of days. The last Pony Express ride was in October 1861, only 18 months after that first ride out of St. Joe.
But, the romance and history live on.
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