For the past few years our little town commemorates the magic of the west and Independence Day by having a Pony Express run.
Mail is carried on horseback for 17.6 miles in rough Wyoming country. Each year riders from nearby ranches are sworn in, legalized and set up in relays to carry United States mail from Hyattville, Wyoming to Ten Sleep, Wyoming.
From Wikipedia:
The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, by horseback, using a series of relay stations. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.[1] From April 3, 1860, to October 1861, it became the West’s most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the country.
The Pony Express was a mail-delivery system of the Leavenworth and Pike’s Peak Express Company of 1859, which in 1860 became the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company. This firm was founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell all of whom were notable in the freighting business.[2
Our ranch has participants every year in the carrying of the mail. They followed this dirt road/route.
Six of our current interns were riders in the “Pony”.
After the swearing in process, the riders then ride or trailer their horses to their mile marker post. Then the riding is underway. Each rider carries the mail bag for one mile. They can go as fast or slow as they want. Some take the opportunity to fly!
When the final rider brings the mail bag into the town of Ten Sleep, people are there waiting and applauding.
It makes one a little teary eyed.
Shortly after the bag makes it to the little town, a parade happens.
Most parades that I’ve been to, the horses with riders are at the back. Horse poop. It’s the horse poop that keeps them back there. Not this parade. It’s opened up by the Pony riders.
Then the rodeo queens of the area.
It’s a fun day and very “westerly”.
