First Run of the Pony Express…..
April 13, 1860…..
The Pony Express arrives in Sacramento, California, completing it first run in only 10 days. It had departed from St. Joseph, Missouri on April 3. Until then, sending a message across the U.S. could take months. However, the Pony Express was a financial failure, with rates of $5 per ounce (hundreds of dollars in today’s money), the average person could not afford to use it. The completion of the first U.S. transcontinental telegraph line in 1861 made the Pony Express obsolete.