The Pony Express is set be begin... The gold region of Colorado...
Item # 713895
April 03, 1860
NEW YORK SEMI-WEEKLY TRIBUNE, April 3, 1860
* The Pony Express begins mail service
On page 5 headed: "The California Pony Express" is a report about the schedule and departure of this bit of romanticized lore of the Old West.
The text is headed: "The California Pony Express" and is datelined St. Louis, with portions including: "We learn...that they commence receiving despatches for the California Pony Express today. Each message will be numbered & will be forwarded from the first station of the telegraph line in Carson Valley in the same order as received here...Triplicates will be sent & every precaution will be taken to prevent their destruction by water or wear & tear. The tariff from St. Louis to any point in California, including express & all other charges, will be $5.30 for the first ten words..." with more. Quite historic in that they were collecting "mail" for the run on April 3rd.
What follows is a report datelined "St. Joseph, Monday, April 2" beginning: "The arrangement are all completed whereby the first of the California express will leave here tomorrow, at 5 o'clock, P. M. In order to avoid the delay of letters from New-York and other Eastern Cities one day (namely over the Sabbath), the day and hour of starting from here will be changed to Friday of each week, at 9 A. M...".
More about the schedule & the number of hours to each destination, plus details about the dispatches transmitted by telegraph. Great to have this preliminary report just prior to the historic departure of the Pony Express.
As if this is not sufficient for one issue, page 6 has over two full columns of text and a nice map on: "The Pike's Peak Gold Region" as the article is headed.
Some of the many subheads include: "What Has Been Done" "Population" "Extend of the Gold Region" "Towns" "Routes" "Climate" "The Future of the Gold Region" and more. The map shows the gold region, as seen in the photos below.
Eight pages, various foxing is heavier on the front page & somewhat less on interior pages, good condition.
Background: Published on the very day the Pony Express officially launched—April 3, 1860—this issue of the New York Semi-Weekly Tribune captures a pivotal moment in American history when the nation was aggressively shrinking its geographic barriers to unite a fractured East and West on the brink of the Civil War. The frantic, final logistical dispatches from St. Louis and St. Joseph detail a high-stakes operation where customers paid an exorbitant $5.30 per ten words (roughly $190 today) for unprecedented speed, utilizing triplicate backups to safeguard data against the perils of the trail and relying on a relays of riders to bridge the 1,800-mile gap between Eastern and Western telegraph lines at Carson Valley. Simultaneously, the extensive two-column feature and map of the Pike's Peak Gold Region on page 6 illustrate the massive, migration-driven expansion into modern-day Colorado, highlighting how the Tribune functioned as both a chronicle of cutting-edge communication and a practical guidebook for thousands of fortune-seekers preparing for the spring trek westward. Together, these adjacent reports signify a booming, pre-transcontinental era where the rapid transmission of information and the mapping of western resources were vital to binding California and the territories to the Union.
* The Pony Express begins mail service
On page 5 headed: "The California Pony Express" is a report about the schedule and departure of this bit of romanticized lore of the Old West.
The text is headed: "The California Pony Express" and is datelined St. Louis, with portions including: "We learn...that they commence receiving despatches for the California Pony Express today. Each message will be numbered & will be forwarded from the first station of the telegraph line in Carson Valley in the same order as received here...Triplicates will be sent & every precaution will be taken to prevent their destruction by water or wear & tear. The tariff from St. Louis to any point in California, including express & all other charges, will be $5.30 for the first ten words..." with more. Quite historic in that they were collecting "mail" for the run on April 3rd.
What follows is a report datelined "St. Joseph, Monday, April 2" beginning: "The arrangement are all completed whereby the first of the California express will leave here tomorrow, at 5 o'clock, P. M. In order to avoid the delay of letters from New-York and other Eastern Cities one day (namely over the Sabbath), the day and hour of starting from here will be changed to Friday of each week, at 9 A. M...".
More about the schedule & the number of hours to each destination, plus details about the dispatches transmitted by telegraph. Great to have this preliminary report just prior to the historic departure of the Pony Express.
As if this is not sufficient for one issue, page 6 has over two full columns of text and a nice map on: "The Pike's Peak Gold Region" as the article is headed.
Some of the many subheads include: "What Has Been Done" "Population" "Extend of the Gold Region" "Towns" "Routes" "Climate" "The Future of the Gold Region" and more. The map shows the gold region, as seen in the photos below.
Eight pages, various foxing is heavier on the front page & somewhat less on interior pages, good condition.
Background: Published on the very day the Pony Express officially launched—April 3, 1860—this issue of the New York Semi-Weekly Tribune captures a pivotal moment in American history when the nation was aggressively shrinking its geographic barriers to unite a fractured East and West on the brink of the Civil War. The frantic, final logistical dispatches from St. Louis and St. Joseph detail a high-stakes operation where customers paid an exorbitant $5.30 per ten words (roughly $190 today) for unprecedented speed, utilizing triplicate backups to safeguard data against the perils of the trail and relying on a relays of riders to bridge the 1,800-mile gap between Eastern and Western telegraph lines at Carson Valley. Simultaneously, the extensive two-column feature and map of the Pike's Peak Gold Region on page 6 illustrate the massive, migration-driven expansion into modern-day Colorado, highlighting how the Tribune functioned as both a chronicle of cutting-edge communication and a practical guidebook for thousands of fortune-seekers preparing for the spring trek westward. Together, these adjacent reports signify a booming, pre-transcontinental era where the rapid transmission of information and the mapping of western resources were vital to binding California and the territories to the Union.
Category: Pre-Civil War
