It didn’t take as long, the ride was shorter than its historic counterpart, and the trail was not quite so dusty. In fact it was paved. Within about an hour the first leg of this year’s Pony Express “re-run” was history.
Richard King of Savannah and Penny Orrick of Easton were the first team out of hundreds joining an effort to retrace the Pony Express mail route on horseback.
In a brief ceremony Monday at the Patee House Museum in St Joseph they took their oaths as Pony Express riders. Then they heard a rousing sendoff from Mayor M. Jeff Thompson, as portrayed by Marshall White. Then off they rode. They arrived in Elwood, Kansas about 17 minutes later. In Elwood they handed off the “mochila” mail bag they were carrying to the next team of riders.
The leather letter pouch was filled with letters originating here in St Joseph. In about ten days those letters and other “vignettes” will be postmarked in Sacramento, California, and mailed by more modern means to their ultimate destinations.
“There’s a crowd there waiting on us, they’ll cheer us in, and once we get there, we’ll unpack the mochila,” says Lyle Ladner, the National President of the Pony Express Association. “They’ll actually postmark them, and drop them in the U.S. Mail, and they’re sent to everybody. There’s about 850 plus letters in there.”
Gary Chilcote of the Patee House museum is the President of the Missouri Chapter of the Pony Express Association. Chilcote says this is the 36th year that they have “re-run” the route from St Joe to Sacramento, and the 155th anniversary of the start of the Pony Express.
Chilcote says they’ve never had a problem finding riders to take part. “We usually have to turn people down” he said.
As you read this, a new pair of riders are adding their part to the re-enactment. You can track their progress at www.ponyexpresstracker.com.