Express Was Being Implemented. It Continued Running Passenger

Express was being implemented. It continued by implying to investors that a lucrative subsidy running passenger stages carrying the U.S. mail from Congress for their “Special Delivery Horse over the Central Route until the Waddell-Russell- Express” as a special service of the U.S. mail was Majors partnership went bankrupt in 1862. Ben imminent.11 Holladay’s Overland Stage Company, which had Right out of the gate, these transportation begun running coach routes in California in titans knew that the Pony Express would be the 1850s, secured a practical monopoly on the a losing operation. Some years later, Majors transportation of mail and freight from St. Joseph estimated that the “Pony” lost several hundred to Denver, as well as to Salt Lake City in 1861, thousand dollars. By 1862 the Russell, Majors, and took over the route from Salt Lake City after and Waddell partnership turned out to have a total the Russell, Majors, and Waddell partnership went indebtedness of $1,331,526.13.12 The partnership’s bankrupt in 1862. web of schemes had been developed with a goal From the very start, the Pony Express of staving off creditors, issuing junk bonds, and was a capitalist boondoggle, a 19th-century on the hope that it could eventually recoup losses Ponzi scheme. It was intended as a spectacular by billing the government for purported losses demonstration of pioneer resiliency intended and charging interest at the rate of 12 percent. to attract investors, rather than to operate The Pony Express had not been a spectacular feat practically. It was therefore in the best interests of of heroic daring and patriotic entrepreneurship the operators of stage lines and the Pony Express in forging rapid communication for the western organized by Holladay and the Russell, Majors, portion of the burgeoning Union as it fought the and Waddell groups to impress investors with the Confederacy. Rather, it had been a brazen effort U.S. Government’s diligence and effectiveness to swindle Congress for subsidies and to defraud in eliminating “thieving Indians” immediately investors. in order to make the route “safe” for the Pony Preceding the gold rush to Pike’s Peak in 1859 Express.9 Once he had the transportation and the Pony Express in 1860-61, in the years monopoly from Missouri to California, Ben between 1846 and 1854 more than 150,000 settler Holladay pursued the same goal.10 The Overland colonists and freighters had traveled the overland Company also secured a land freight contract from route from Missouri to Sacramento, killing game the Army and the weekly mail contract between as they went. In 1853 the Commissioner of Indian Salt Lake City and Sacramento. Over thirteen Affairs reported that the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and days, riders for the “Horse Express” would hand western Sioux were “in a starving state...Their off saddle bags in relays, twice a week, winter and women are pinched with want, and their children summer, fifty-two weeks a year. Russell, Majors constantly crying out with hunger.”13 The Pony and Waddell hoped to build a financial empire Express only made this situation worse. While they lasted only from 1859 to 1861, the Pony Express 9 On May 2, 1862, three months following the Bear River Massacre, mail stage operator Ben Holladay sent a telegram to Utah Governor Brigham Young congrat- 11 Leroy R. Hafen, The Overland Mail, 1849-1869 (1926, ulating him for resumption of mail delivery. Edward Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Co.), 189. W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City: By 12 Settle and Settle, Empire, 75-7; Arthur Chapman, Authority of the City Council, Star Printing, 1886), Arthur The Pony Express (New York: A.L. Burt, 1932), 256. 304; Settle and Settle, Empire, 95-117; Chapman, 10 The partnership took over the Central Overland Cali- Pony, 248-55; Raymond W. Settle and Mary Lund fornia and Pike’s Peak Express Company in 1858. Ray- Settle, Saddles and Spurs: The Pony Express Saga (1955, mond W. Settle and Mary Lund Settle, Empire on Wheels Harrisburg: The Stackpole Co.), 171-76. (1949 Stanford: Stanford University Press), 59-63. 13 Hoebel, The Cheyenne, 109. Treaty-Making with the Utes, Arapaho, and Cheyenne in Colorado Territory 31 .

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