A thrilling and truthful history of the pony express; or, Blazing the westward way, and other sketches and incidents of those stirring times . line he used 2,750horses and mules and 100 Concordcoaches. It cost $55,000 for theharness; the feed bill was a milliona year. To equip and run this linefor the first twelve months cost$2,425,000. The Government paidHolladay a million dollars a year inmail contracts. In 1864. grain wasworth 25 cents a pound along the line,and hay up to $125 a ton. In one day,Dave Street contracted, at St. Louis, for seven Missouri River steamers toload with corn for the
A thrilling and truthful history of the pony express; or, Blazing the westward way, and other sketches and incidents of those stirring times . line he used 2,750horses and mules and 100 Concordcoaches. It cost $55,000 for theharness; the feed bill was a milliona year. To equip and run this linefor the first twelve months cost$2,425,000. The Government paidHolladay a million dollars a year inmail contracts. In 1864. grain wasworth 25 cents a pound along the line,and hay up to $125 a ton. In one day,Dave Street contracted, at St. Louis, for seven Missouri River steamers toload with corn for the Overlandsarmy of mules and horses. Holladay, whose whole career readslike fiction, was the Overland Napo-leon for about five years, beginningin December, 1861. The Indian dep-redations of 1864-66 greatly crippledhis stage line, nearly all the stationsfor one hundred miles being burned,his stock stolen, and his men loss was upward of half a November, 1866, he sold out theOverland stages to Wells, Fargo & Co.,in whose hands the romantic enter-prise continued till the railroadsdrove romance off the plains # Stage-Cuachinu Across the Plains CHAPTER IVTHE PONY EXPRESS THE-MOST UNIQUE AND ROMANTIC MAILSERVICE EVER ORGANIZED DESPITE the consuming interestin the coming war, Senator Gwinkept up his fight for a quick mail routeand the reduction of time in sendingnews to the Pacific Coast and receiv-ing news from that region. Notwith-standing that it was found impossibleto obtain any subsidy from Congress,at that time, for the purpose in view,in the winter of 1859-60, SenatorGwin and several capitalists of NewYork, and Mr. Russell of the Overlandtransportation firm of Russell, Majorsand Waddell, met in Washington City,and the result of that meeting wasthe real start of one of the mostromantic and daring business ven-tures this country, or any other coun-try, ever knew. That was the PonyExpress. By that the time of trans-mitting news across the continent was
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