Everyone knows about the Pony Express. It’s one of the most romanticized failed business ventures in American history.
I am one of many Americans fascinated by the legend of the Pony Express. I have visited a Pony Express museum, and a Pony Express station, and even sent letters via the Pony Express. Clearly, I am a fan!
When I heard about Will Grant’s book documenting his ride on the Pony Express trail, I knew I had to read it.
Why do people love the Pony Express?
I’m sure there are many reasons but essentially It is a symbol of our ingenuity, bravery, and daring. Jim DeFelice, author of West Like Lightning, sums it up nicely. “There’s so much embodied in the story of the Pony Express that’s part of the American spirit: man versus nature, rugged individual exploits. Above all, it was the riders’ endurance and resilience that made the Pony Express live on, and still resonate today.”
Westward expansion has a complicated history. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses but the Pony Express has emerged as a symbol of that time.
And the Pony Express rider is a poster child for American ruggedness and can-do attitude.
Here is what Will Grant had to say about why the legacy of the Pony Express lives on.
I think the frontier was a fundamental part of making the American character. The West certainly informs our sense of identity, this idea of independence and one’s resilience and the ability to endure hardship and a certain amount of freedom has certainly informed the national character.
And so the Pony Express. It is sort of a romantic notion of the West. It was nothing more than a mail service and it was young men running horses. This is pretty easy to wrap your head around. It’s like good, clean fun in the West. This is like acceptable. It’s palatable.
Will Grant in Outside Magazine Podcast interview, July 2023
What I love about The Last Ride of the Pony Express
From my childhood road trips through the Big Trips I’ve taken with my own children, I have crisscrossed back and forth across the country, covering many miles, especially in the West. I have driven on the Loneliest Road in America and I have driven on some of the busiest roads in America (during rush hour too 🤪).
It takes many hours to drive across western states – and even more hours (days!) to cross on horseback. This gives me plenty of time to think and wonder about the things you are seeing outside the window right now and also to wonder about how things were so many years ago when the first white settlers began to cross the country, heading West. I have a GPS. A paper map. A paved highway. But what sort of landmarks did they have? How did they make it across the prairie and the desert and over the mountains without getting lost?
Will Grant’s book gives a “boots (and hooves!) on the ground” perspective and insight into what I see at 70 mph and always wonder about when driving cross-country. By riding the Pony Express trail he experienced a cross-section sampling of the people and landscapes of the West and has generously shared his experience of the American West today in The Last Ride of the Pony Express.
Farmers
Agriculture in America has become more and more of a corporate affair. Driving through the Midwest you see abandoned houses in the middle of cornfields and occasionally an extensive operation with lots of equipment and silos. How can we farm the same amount of space with less manpower? The answer is technology.
Will rode along with a farmer as he was working in the fields. The giant combines and tractors are all running virtually on autopilot. Satellite navigation and computers tell the equipment where to go. Sensors onboard monitor water levels in the soil and the computer tells the farmer/equipment when it’s time to water or how much fertilizer to put down.
Luckily I read the chapters about Missouri and Nebraska before my road trip to Iowa. As we passed through the Quad Cities, we stopped at the John Deere Pavilion to see the farm equipment on display. The size of the machinery was mind-boggling. You can even climb up inside a couple of them. There I was, sitting in the cab, seeing all the fancy equipment that Will had described in his book. So awesome!
Just for fun you can watch a timelapse of them setting up the display inside the pavilion…
Realities of Life On the Trail
The possibilities of things that can go wrong on a 2,000-mile journey on horseback are endless. Traffic, rattlesnakes, wild horses, weather… The list goes on. And even in perfect conditions, Will needed to maintain constant vigilance to be aware of any potential issues that could pop up.
Solitude and Silence
One of the other things that struck me about this journey is exactly how much time Will spent in solitude and silence, disconnected from the online world and day-to-day life. So unusual in this day and age.
I enjoy finding pockets of silence and I love wide-open spaces. But 139 days is a long time!
Here’s what Will had to say about the solitude of the trail.
The best days would be when I woke up before dawn and it’s just Chicken Fry and Badger and I. And I wouldn’t see anybody all day. High temperature, 75 degrees, a nice breeze to keep down the flies, nothing but open country to look at. And all I would hear are the footsteps of the horses.
And this wonderful sense of solitude to do nothing but sit there and think about the American West, to think about myself, to think about my horses. and eat snacks in the saddle.
Those were the best days.
The Keys to Sucess
Will says that the keys to success on this journey were organization (the logistics of such a trip are mind-boggling! Finding campsites every 25 miles and arranging for food/water caches in the desert and more) and optimism.
If you travel for five months, I don’t care what you do, you’re gonna have hard days. And all you can do is just keep your chin up and try to remain optimistic that when things are not going well, It means that they’re about to turn around.
I wholeheartedly agree that optimism is a key ingredient to any successful journey.
What Did Will Grant Conclude About The Pony Express?
“The mail service lasted only eighteen months because the schedule was too tight and the land too hard. That’s what I concluded. That the desert gave no quarter, and the cost of running horses over that desert was too high to maintain. …
…To make an average of eleven miles per hour, which is what the ten-day delivery schedule required, a rider would need a lot of fresh horses. Each one of those horses would need care and housing. And if there was another rider following, coming along three days behind, who would need the same, as well as two riders on the same schedule but traveling in the opposite direction, then the support needed to carry that eleven-mile-an-hour average would not only be difficult to install and maintain, but also expensive to operate.”
The Last Ride of the Pony Express by Will Grant
From my childhood road trips through the Big Trips I’ve taken with my children, I have crisscrossed back and forth across the country, covering many miles, especially in the West. I have driven on the Loneliest Road in America and I have also driven on some of the busiest roads in America (during rush hour too 🤪).
It takes many hours to drive across each of the western states – and even more hours (days!) to cross on horseback. This gives me plenty of time to think and wonder about the things you are seeing outside the window right now and also to wonder about how things were so many years ago when the first white settlers began to cross the country, heading West. I have a GPS. A paper map. A paved highway. But what sort of landmarks did they have? How did they make it across the prairie and the desert and over the mountains without getting lost?
Will Grant’s book gives a “boots (and hooves!) on the ground” perspective and insight into what I see at 70 mph and always wonder about when driving cross-country. By riding the Pony Express trail he experienced a cross-section sampling of the people and landscapes of the West and has generously shared his experience of the American West today in The Last Ride of the Pony Express.
Podcast Interview About the Book
You can listen to Will Grant talk about the book and his journey on the Outside Magazine podcast.
Read About the Pony Express
There are two books I recommend if you want to learn more about The Pony Express.
West Like Lightning by Jim DeFelice is an excellent history of the operation from beginning to end. Lots of great info!
The Last Ride of the Pony Express by Will Grant is a great modern-day boots-on-the-ground perspective about the Pony Express – what the trail and the people of the American West are like today.
Add a bookmark!
Grab some horse quote bookmarks from my shop to go with your Pony Express reading!
Send a Letter on the Pony Express
Read this to find out how to send a letter by Pony Express!
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