Description
Book SynopsisThe Pony Express has a hold on the American imagination wildly out of proportion to its actual contribution to the history and development of the West. It lasted less than eighteen monthsabout the amount of time it took author Scott Alumbaugh to plan and ride the routeand utterly failed by every measure of success attributed to it. The only reason it did not fade out of public consciousness, as did the far more successful Butterfield mail, is publicity. In the Pony's case, a thirty-year campaign of publicity mounted by Buffalo Bill Cody, who mislead the public by claiming to have been a Pony Express rider, and lied outright by claiming to have made the longest Pony Express run. More than anyone, Buffalo Bill kept the legend alive by including a Pony Express segment throughout the run of his Wild West show.
But while the Pony Express may be among the least significant developments of its era, it is the most iconic. One can't really understand the Pony Expresswhat it stood for,
