The LOC.GOV Wise Guide : It Ended the Pony Express

When the first transcontinental telegraph system was completed on Oct. 24, 1861, it put the Pony Express out of business. The telegraph system, invented by Samuel F.B. Morse, could transmit messages rapidly from coast to coast using the electronic dots and dashes of Morse code. It is hard to imagine today, with the ability to send messages across the country or around the world in seconds using e-mail, that at one time the Pony Express provided the fastest delivery of a message across America.

Pony Express, 1953. Motion picture poster for Pony Express, showing Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok and Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill, standing by stagecoach, with Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling inside

Hollenberg Pony Express Station, Route 243, Hanover Vicinity, Washington County, KS, [sometime after 1933]

How long did a Pony Express message take to go from its origin of St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, Calif.? Ten days. The Pony Express, which only operated from April 1860 until October 1861, was a financial failure for its owners, but some of its riders, such as William Buffalo Bill Cody are the stuff of legend. You can read more about the Pony Express in the Americas Library Web site for kids and families. The Pony Express is featured in the section called Jump Back in Time. Go to this Web site, click on the Jump Back link and then Pick a Date to Visit, in this case, Oct. 24. You can discover fascinating bits of information for any day of the year in history by going to Jump Back in Time.

More than 4,000 stories based on the unparalleled materials in the Library of Congress are offered in Americas Library, an educational, interactive and easy-to-use Web site for kids and families. Why not log on, play around and learn something?

You can also find other materials related to the Pony Express. For example, by going to the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog and searching on Pony Express, you can access such images as a photograph of an 1857 Pony Express station in Washington County, Kan. The photo is from the Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record Collection, which is online in American Memory.

The collection documents achievements in architecture, engineering and design in the United States and its territories through a comprehensive range of building types and engineering technologies, including examples as diverse as the Pueblo of Acoma, houses, windmills, one-room schools, the Golden Gate and other bridges and buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright.]

And dont forget to view the very first message sent by telegraph. Its message: What hath God wrought.

A. Paramount Pictures Corp., : Pony Express, 1953. Motion picture poster for Pony Express, showing Forrest Tucker as Wild Bill Hickok and Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill, standing by stagecoach, with Rhonda Fleming and Jan Sterling inside. Reproduction information: Reproduction No.: LC-USZC4-6067 (color film copy transparency); Call No.: POS - MOT. PIC. - 1953 .P77, no. 1 (B size).

B. Historic American Buildings Survey, Hollenberg Pony Express Station, Route 243, Hanover Vicinity, Washington County, KS, [sometime after 1933]. Prints and Photographs Division. Reproduction information: Call No.: HABS, KANS,101-HAN.V,1-.