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April 3, 2017

pony-express-rider


William J. Parkinson (1899-1993),

Pony Express Rider​, 1938, oil on canvas, 89 x 59 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harden W. Breinholt, 1983.

The Pony Express, a system of delivering mail in the American West before the telegraph was established, was first instituted on this day in 1860, as demand for information in the newly-established western territories increased with the impending Civil War. The Pony Express was comprised of a system of experience riders who delivered messages by riding on horseback to their intended destinations to deliver their mail. The Pony Expressed allowed messages to go from the East Coast to the West Coast in a matter of just ten days.