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The Cost of Instant Information Delivery
The photo of a Pony Express rider above looks like a boy. That’s because he was a boy.
Mythology states that the Old West was run by manly men. It turns out, the communication pipeline in the early 1860s relied on teenagers. The Pony Express was the original DM.
I recently fell down the rabbit hole of the Pony Express, reading about this short-lived but impactful cultural artifact that only lasted 18 months. There are obvious differences but also parallels to today.
What struck me was the enormous effort it took to get a letter from coast to coast in a mere 10 days. Riders could weigh no more than 125 pounds so the horses could gallop swiftly through mountains, deserts, blizzards and attacks.
Most of the riders were just kids — teenage boys hired for their size and stature. Mark Twain called these riders “a little bit of a man” in his book Roughing It.
In emergencies, riders covered more than 20 hours at up to 25 miles per hour. Can you imagine the fear alternating with boredom riding hour after hour across some godforsaken Nevada expanse at night with no lights looking for the next outpost — which may be attacked by the time you arrived?
