The Pony Express Rides Again Every June

Every June, without fanfare or a government budget, a chain of horses gallops out of St. Joseph, Missouri, carrying real United States mail toward California. It is not a reenactment staged for tourists. For more than 45 years, volunteer riders have kept a business that shut its doors in 1861 running like it never stopped.

A Business That Lasted 18 Months

The original Pony Express began in April 1860, promising to carry mail between Missouri and California in about ten days on horseback.

It worked. Riders changed horses every ten to fifteen miles and rode in relays day and night, cutting delivery time from weeks to roughly ten days.

Then the transcontinental telegraph was finished in October 1861, and instant messages made a ten-day horse relay obsolete overnight. The company folded after just eighteen months.

Volunteers Never Let It End

The Pony Express stayed dead for over a century, until a group of history-minded horse riders formed the National Pony Express Association in the late 1970s.

They set out to identify, mark, and preserve the original trail through all eight states it once crossed: Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.

In 1978, members rode portions of the trail as a tribute. The full Missouri-to-California relay began in 1980, and it has run nearly every June since (the 2020 ride was cancelled for COVID-19). By 2026, volunteers had kept it going for more than 45 years.

1,966 Miles, Eight States, Ten Days

The modern relay covers the same 1,966-mile route as the original, crossing all eight historic states in exactly ten days.

More than 750 volunteer riders take part each year, working in a leap-frog pattern so mail keeps moving 24 hours a day.

At each of the roughly 900 exchange points along the trail, an incoming rider reins in, lifts a leather mochila from the saddle, and hands it to the next rider and horse. The organization asks riders to average about 10 miles per hour, the same pace the original 1860 couriers kept.

You Can Still Send a Letter By Horse

The mochila is not carrying props. Each year the relay carries around 1,000 pieces of real, postmarked mail, sent by members of the public who mail a letter specifically to ride the trail.

Every letter travels the full route and picks up a Pony Express postmark along the way, the same kind of proof-of-passage the original riders' mail once carried.

No company runs it. No government agency funds it. Every June, a few hundred people saddle up on their own horses, on their own time, and keep a promise made in 1860 moving across the American West.