The Pony Express

With a spirit of adventure and the hope of making a fortune, Americans moved west by the thousands in the 1840s. The government encouraged these pioneers, offering the land cheaply and trying to provide services like law enforcement and transportation.

One of the biggest challenges to those going west was how hard it was to communicate with their families or businesses back east. This was before the invention of the telephone. Although there were telegraph machines, there was no way to send a telegraph all the way across the country. The only means of communication was to send letters and parcels by land.