Cecilya Lundy
CIS-270-02
Writing Assignment #2
The Pony Express
The old west was a simplistic culture that depended on very little to get by. When first thinking about this culture, the first thing that comes to my mind are cowboys and making America great. In my last paper I focused on the simplistic ways of the Indian culture and their methods of communication but this essay will focus on the communication modes of the American West culture. The most common successful way of communication in the mid 1800’s in the west was the Pony Express. This paper will describe what the Pony Express was, how it developed over time and how the technology of it was enhanced to and develop for the IT world.
In the late 1850’s there was a growing need for quicker means of communication and for people to make a profit off the needs. On April 3, 1860 the first Pony Express rider traveled to deliver letter from Sacramento, California and all the way to St. Joseph, Missouri, as well as vice versa. The men made their trips in a record breaking time of arriving in April 14th, they proved that mail could be delivered in ten days. Individuals developed the pony express to allow them to send main across the country at record breaking speeds by creating routes for the mail to travel. Many people used the Pony Express for different reasons, an important example is the fact that riders carried word of Lincoln being elected as president to many different areas.
There were many problems that the Pony Express had and most of them had to deal with the safety of the individual riders as well as the well-being of the horses. Riders had to be light weight so that the horses would not get tired as quickly, but they also had to be able to protect themselves. To make the trips easier on the horses the franchise decided that they would have stops along the way of the route so that they horses could either rest or even trade positions with another horse to get the rider to his destination quicker. The biggest problem for riders was their own individual safety, in these times there were Indians that did not like when the white man came into their land. There are records of many riders that were killed, not only is that bad for the rider, but the mail also never reaches its destination if the rider was killed while in transit to that area.
The Pony Express was only around for a short 19 months, but it got the job done as best it could while ti was the quickest way to send mail. One of the most important influences of the Pony Express was that it created a need for a safer way as well as a quicker way to send mail. The introduction of the telegraph was what eventually put the Pony Express out of business. I think that the Pony Express was crucial aspect of development for communication in the IT world. The Pony Express created the need for individuals to be protected but also was revolutionary for the time, this was their mail system and it worked for a while. This is relatable to the way that as a child I used to receive actual letters from individuals, but now I receive emails because they are quicker. It is a constant cycle.
Work Cited
http://ponyexpress.org/pony-express-historical-timeline/
42explore2.com/pony.htm