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Editor's note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com's Historic section.
SALT LAKE CITY — Cindy Toone glanced over as a light-rail train car buzzed through Main Street in front of her Friday, quickly comparing it to a revolutionary idea from over 150 years ago.
"It could be said that the Pony Express was the first rapid transit, the first fast mail line across the continent," said Toone, the historic preservation committee state chairwoman for the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.
Moments later, members of the organization rededicated a pair of plaques placed on the south facade of the Tribune Building — the home of Neumont College of Computer Science today — that honor the history of the downtown Salt Lake stop along the Pony Express, a short-lived but highly influential mail delivery service in the early 1860s.
One of the markers, originally sponsored by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, dates back to nearly a century ago. But these markers signify the original location of the service and other details about its legacy.
"Unfortunately, it only lasted for a year and a half but it did bring all the important mail, death notices, information about (everything) in the country on this long trail," said Kathryn Asay, the Utah state regent for the society. "These riders were usually orphans, definitely under the age of 17, that would come with this mail. And it started the whole mail system to work in a productive way."
Pony Express in Utah
Alexander Majors, William Waddell and William Russell revolutionized the speed that information traveled in the West with the launch of the Pony Express in April 1860. They introduced a service that allowed for mail to be carried from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California — a route of over 1,800 miles — in just 10 days by a series of riders on horseback.
A boat also carried anything destined for San Francisco, said Brad Gurney, the mayor of Fairfield and an amateur Pony Express historian.
Gurney explains that Majors, Waddell and Russell founded the business with the goal of receiving a federal mail contract, which is why he believes that the service was never really meant to last long. Yet their forward thinking was a major improvement from the 30 to 45 days it normally took for mail to arrive coast-to-coast, depending on steamboat or stagecoach.
The Main Street Salt Lake City location — a building called the Salt Lake House — was one of 26 stops on the Pony Express across Utah.
"It was a place of resting and relaxation for the riders who rode all night and all day from Saint Joseph to Sacramento," Asay said.
Where and when the Utah stations operated is a bit fuzzy only because most of the records from the time were lost well over a century ago, and they did shift around a lot. But many of the riders were boys between the ages of 11 and 17, Gurney said. The gig paid well for the time; History.com notes that riders were paid $25 per week for carrying up to 20 pounds of mail about 75 to 100 miles.
Due to its cost, the military and news organizations were most likely to use the service. Gurney said most of the information that arrived in Utah likely ended up at Fort Douglas or at the offices of newspapers.
The service continued into 1861 but without enough funding and the invention of the telegraph, something that rendered the Pony Express obsolete, the company folded in October 1861. Still, it set up a reimagined world for mail service and information, setting up a future for trains, planes, automobiles and the internet to speed the process up further, getting the world where it is today.
Honoring the Pony Express legacy
The Pony Express's legacy has been preserved in many ways, one being the Pony Express National Historic Trail, a trail that traces the route riders took back in the day. The trail cuts through eight states, including Utah.
In 1924, the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution commissioned a plaque to remember the station in downtown Salt Lake City. The plaque coincided with the opening of what was then the new Salt Lake Tribune headquarters on Main Street at the location of the then-demolished Salt Lake House.
The Salt Lake House's original bricks, however, remain as a part of the building's south facade near a breezeway that connects Main and Regent streets in the city.
Toone said the National Society of the Sons of Utah Pioneers placed another marker honoring the Pony Express in 1960 during what was the 100th anniversary of the mail service, including the names of its employees and depictions of the route through Utah.
The Utah Headliners Chapter added a third, unrelated plaque in 1971 to commemorate the Salt Lake Tribune's 100th birthday. All three plaques remained outside of the building for years before they were removed about a decade ago because of wear and tear, as well as vandalism. The building was also slated for a major renovation at the same time.
They hadn't been reinstalled in any way until Asay contacted the owner of the building, Micheal Ferro, to ask about the fate of the markers in 2020. He informed its leaders that the plaques had been placed in storage. Asay took the plaques to a foundry in Orem, which refurbished the plaques so they could be placed on the bricks of what was the original home of the Pony Express in Salt Lake City.
The organization rededicated the plaque Friday in a ceremony that included music, treats and even pieces of the past presented to those in attendance. Asay said she hopes people who come across the plaques will understand the appreciate the blip in Utah history where the Pony Express changes everything.
"Here we are today, still trying to deliver mail all over the country," she said. "It all kind of started on the Pony Express."
