Since the Days of the Pony Express, It’s Been All About Speed

Walter Martin Baumhofer’s oil on board titled The Pony Express, St. Joseph, sold for $10,000 at a March 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On Nov. 19, 2007, I watched Charlie Rose interview Jeff Bezos about the new Kindle that debuted that day and sold out in 5½ hours. Books had been the last bastion of analog holdouts, although there were lots of Ebooks for sale.

The Kindle was something new.

It was a light (10 ounces) device that didn’t require a computer and would store up to 200 books in a library. One hundred and one of the 112 New York Times bestsellers were already available for $9.99, in addition to all major newspapers and magazines. You could order it from Amazon.com for $399 and when it arrived, it automatically recognized the user. Plus, there were lots of other cool features like a 250,000-word dictionary, access to Wikipedia and its 400 million pages, and you could read the first chapter of any book for free before deciding to buy it.

I immediately ordered mine and there was already a two-month waiting time. It is still around somewhere gathering dust, but my new Kindle is on my iPad (with an audio feature).

I guess we have always been an impatient culture with the “need for speed” in our DNA. Until the spring of 1860, it took 20 days for mail to get from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento … far too long for most merchants and businessmen. Stagecoaches were just too slow until one of them – Russell, Majors and Waddell of Leavenworth, Kan. – came up with an idea to cut the delivery time by 50 percent.

For a fee of $2 to $10 per ounce, depending on the distance, you could use their new innovative mail service: the Pony Express. Starting on April 3, 1860, every Wednesday and Saturday one rider on horseback would leave at noon from Sacramento heading east, and another at 8 a.m. from St. Joseph heading west. Averaging about 8 miles an hour, every 10 miles or so, they would change horses at a relay station and continue at breakneck speed.

The typical payload of 20 pounds of letters was tucked into a Mexican mochila (knapsack) with four cantinas (locked pockets) for the oiled silk-wrapped letters that kept them dry when the rider inevitably had to cross streams or rivers. The mochila was designed to slip over the saddle horn and the rider sat on it until the next change of horses. Every 75 to 80 miles was a “home station,” where the incoming rider would pass the mochila to a fresh rider and then bunk down until the mail arrived from the opposite direction. Then, somewhat rested, he was off again, back the way he came.

The young hell-bent for leather riders intrigued the nation and their dedication became a staple for many bedtime stories. Some children heard the tale about 19-year-old Jack Keetley, who rode 340 miles in 31 hours non-stop until taken from the saddle … sound asleep. Fifteen-year-old William Frederick Cody was one of the daring young riders who would later become famous as Buffalo Bill with his own traveling Wild West show.

Still, speed was what mattered and the formal record for the central route’s 1,966 miles is 7 days and 17 hours. This was of special significance since it allowed California newspapers to publish President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address. The Pony Express was, in every way, about speed. Even its history went by in a flash— 19 months, 2 weeks, 3 days and kaput! The bold experiment was finished, partially because it was costing about $30 a letter, but it was really just another victim of a new technology.

The ride lasted from April 3, 1860, to Nov. 20, 1861 … 596,501 miles, 30,700 pieces of mail and only one lost mochila! The Pony Express and its 80 dedicated riders, 400 horses and 190 relay stations all became irrelevant on Oct. 21, 1861, with the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line. That pattern of one innovation, one technology, giving way to another seems to be accelerating as our impatience and expectations continue to grow.

I just ordered four C batteries from Amazon and discovered they won’t be here until tomorrow (bummer!).

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Chicago World’s Fair was More Than a Ferris Wheel, Buffalo Bill and Commemorative Coins

1893-worlds-columbian-exposition-admittance-ticket
A group of 18 World’s Columbian Exposition tickets, including this scarce Benjamin Franklin piece, realized $1,265 at a January 2011 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

In 2003, bestselling author Erik Larson wrote The Devil in The White City, a non-fiction narrative of a serial killer who murdered up to 200 people using the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (the Chicago World’s Fair) as a backdrop. Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly has the film rights and Martin Scorsese will direct.

There was a lot of competition for the fair between Chicago and New York City. NYC bolstered their bid when Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Waldorf Astor and J.P. Morgan pledged $15 million in support. But Chicago prevailed by matching the $15 million from Marshall Field, Philip Armour and Gustavus Swift (of meatpacking fame, who sold “Everything but the squeal,” a highly effective slogan highlighting how they used all animal parts to make other products and eliminate pollution).

However, what sealed the deal was a pledge by Lyman Gage, president of the powerful First National Bank of Chicago, to provide millions of dollars to help finance exhibitors. Gage would later serve as the 42nd Secretary of the Treasury under both William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt.

Chicago was eager to host the event and demonstrate how much progress they had made after the disastrous Fire of 1871 involving Mrs. O’Leary’s cow. They painted so many stucco buildings white and had new electric lights illuminating so many streets that they earned the nickname “The White City.” They successfully conveyed the image of fresh, sanitary and new. There was also a major initiative called City Beautiful that included cleaning up trash in streets, empty lots and alleys.

A major mistake they made was denying William Frederick Cody (“Buffalo Bill”) permission to perform his famous Wild West Show. Ever the shrewd businessman, he simply set up shop outside the fairgrounds and siphoned off customers. However, the fair’s shaky finances received a big boost when Pittsburgh-based bridge maker George Ferris debuted his new invention – a 264-foot-tall Ferris Wheel. It could accommodate 2,160 people at a time and with a fare of 50 cents (double the cost of a fair ticket), it bailed out the fair and wiped out a big budget deficit.

The federal government also pitched in with the introduction of the country’s first postcards, a new commemorative stamp, and two new commemorative coins. One was a quarter featuring Queen Isabella – who financed the voyage of Columbus. It was the first time a U.S. coin honored a woman. The other was the 50-cent commemorative Columbus coin, both still popular with coin collectors today. The entire fair was an homage to Columbus, celebrating his voyage 400 years earlier, despite being one year late.

On July 12, American historian Frederick Jackson Turner skipped the Wild West Show and the docking of a replica from Norway of a Viking ship – just two of the hundreds of events that attracted up to 28 million spectators to the fair. Turner opted to put some finishing touches on his thesis before delivery at the Art Institute of Chicago that night.

More on his historic speech in my next post.

Jim O'NielIntelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].