Pony Express began 150 years ago; Sacramento observances are few
The Pony Express turns 150 years old this weekend, and the old gray mare ain't what she used to be.
When the fabled mail route started up April 3, 1860, it galloped directly into American mythology.
"The Pony Express is iconic in the national imagination," said University of Maryland professor Christopher Corbett, author of "Orphans Preferred," a book on the Pony Express legend.
It lasted barely 11/2 years, carrying mail between St. Joseph, Mo., and Sacramento and sometimes San Francisco, but today anyone can envision a young rider hopping off a lathered horse and onto a rested one, rocketing a leather pouch across the forbidding Western landscape.
"It's this powerful and romantic bit of the Old West," said Corbett.
We carry the image, but we don't celebrate it much. There will be one small ceremony in Sacramento to mark the anniversary this weekend, but there's not much horse power behind it.
The bulk of the mail route from Old Sac to Folsom will be covered via light rail.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/01/2646724/pony-express-began-150-years-ago.html#ixzz0jrZ2rvF3