The Pony Express re-ride begins this week with riders carrying mail as they travel 1,800 miles from Sacramento, Calif., to St. Joseph, Missouri. Local stops will be Thursday in Woodfords, Carson City and Fort Churchill in Lyon County.
The re-ride will arrive in Woodfords at approximately 1 p.m. Carson City at South Curry & West 2nd. St., at approximately 6 p.m. and Fort Churchill State Park at 10:45 p.m.
Hundreds of riders participate in the Pony Express Re-ride each year, commemorating a system that revolutionized mail delivery by completing runs half-way across the country in a matter of days instead of weeks or months by wagon.
Riders travel day and night to make the 10-day trip from California, through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and into Missouri. A GPS that is carried in the Mochila at all times and linked to a live, interactive map of the ride. Go here to follow the ride via the GPS tracker.
The Pony Express operated only 19 months, running mochilas stuffed with thousands of pieces of mail from April 1860 until November 1861 when the service was discontinued following the completion of the transcontinental telegraph.
