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"The intent of this Historic Resource Study (HRS) of the Pony Express National Historic Trail is threefold: 1) to provide basic information to assist in the preparation of the trail comprehensive management plan (CMP) and to manage and interpret the trail, 2) to furnish National Park Service (NPS) managers and planners, state and local authorities, private landowners, and cooperating groups with an extensive trail database for action plans and implementation activities for the Pony Express National Historic Trail, and 3) to give to the public a general history of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (C.O.C. & P.P. Express Co.) otherwise known as the Pony Express"--Preface excerpt, page [i].
Wallace Stegner called South Pass “one of the most deceptive and impressive places in the West.” Nowhere can travelers cross the Rockies so easily as through this high, treeless valley in Wyoming immediately south of the Wind River Mountains. South Pass has received much attention in lore and memory but attracted no serious book-length study—until now. In this narrative, award-winning author Will Bagley explains the significance of South Pass to the nation’s history and to the development of the American West. Fur traders first saw South Pass in 1812. From the early 1840s until the completion of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads almost forty years later, emigrants on the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails used South Pass in transforming the American West in a single generation. Bagley traces the peopling of the region by the earliest inhabitants and adventurers, including Indian peoples, trappers and fur traders, missionaries, and government-commissioned explorers. Later, California gold rushers, Latter-day Saints, and families seeking new lives went through this singular gap in the Rockies. Without South Pass, overland wagons beginning their journey far to the east along the Missouri River could not have reached their destinations in a single season, and western settlement might have been delayed for decades. The story of South Pass offers a rich history. The Overland Stage, Pony Express, and first transcontinental telegraph all came through the region. Nearly a century later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower designated South Pass as one of America’s first National Historic Landmarks. An American place so rich in historical significance, Bagley argues, deserves the best of historical preservation efforts.
The Pony Express has a hold on the American imagination wildly out of proportion to its actual role in the history of the West. The system of transporting mail to California by a relay of lone riders on swift horses ran less than eighteen months in 1860-1861 and failed by every measure of success. Nevertheless, it has become the most iconic symbol of the West. Scott Alumbaugh was so taken with the Pony Express that at age 62 he bikepacked 1,400 miles of the trail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah. Alumbaugh’s journey took five weeks on a route that was mostly off-road, sometimes through remote territory. Along the way he came to see the celebrated Pony Express as a collection of fables based on a few historical facts and reshaped into a symbol of the spirit that “won the West.” On The Pony Express Trail: One Man’s Bikepacking Journey to Discover History from a Different Kind of Saddle recounts Scott Alumbaugh’s experience bikepacking the Pony Express Trail during the summer of 2021. The narrative follows his day-to-day experiences and impressions—the challenges, the sites he visited, the country he rode through, and the interactions with the people he met—while taking a fresh look at the real Pony Express in the context of mid-1800s historical events along the trail: The Mexican-American, Utah, and Paiute Wars; the California and Pike’s Peak gold rushes; the overland emigration of hundreds of thousands to Oregon and California; the exodus of tens of thousands of Mormons to Utah; and the increasingly contentious fight over slavery along with the looming threat of civil war.
"Spellbinding" (Douglas Preston) and "completely fascinating" (Elizabeth Letts), cowboy and journalist Will Grant takes us on an epic and authentic horseback journey into the modern West on an adventure of a lifetime. The Last Ride of the Pony Express boldly illuminates both our mythic fascination with the Pony Express, and how its spirit continues to this day. ​ The Pony Express was a fast-horse frontier mail service that spanned the American West— the high, dry, and undeniably lonesome part of North America. While in operation during the 1860s, it carried letter mail on a blistering ten-day schedule between Missouri and San Francisco, running through a vast and mostly uninhabited wilderness. It covered a massive distance—akin to running horses between Madrid and Moscow— and to this day, the Pony Express is irrefutably the greatest display of American horsemanship to ever color the pages of a history book. Though the Pony Express has enjoyed a lot of traction over the years, among the authors that have attempted to encapsulate it, none have ever ridden it themselves. While most scholars would look for answers inside a library, Will Grant looks for his between the ears of a horse. Inspired by the likes of Mark Twain, Sir Richard Burton, and Horace Greeley, all of whom traveled throughout the developing West, Will Grant returned to his roots: he would ride the trail himself with his two horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, from one end to the other. Will Grant captures the spirit of the west in a way that few writers have. Along with rich encounters with the ranchers, farmers, historians, and businessmen who populate the trail, his exploits on horseback offer an intimate portrait of how the West has evolved from the rough and tumble 19th century to the present, and it’s written with such intimacy that you’ll feel as though you’re riding right alongside of him. Along the way, he fights off wild mustangs wanting to steal his horses in Utah, camps with Peruvian sheepherders in the mountains, and even spends three days riding under the Top Gun aviator school in Nevada, which are just a handful of extraordinary tales Will Grant unveils as he makes his way across the treacherous and, at times, thrilling landscape of the known and unknown American West. The Last Ride of the Pony Express is a uniquely tenacious tale of adventure by a native son of the West who defies most modern conveniences to compass some two thousand miles on horseback. The result is an unforgettable narrative that will forever change how you see the West, the Pony Express, and America as a whole.