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Author: Patricia Ryon Quiri
Publisher: Capstone
Published: 2019-05-01
Total Pages: 45
ISBN-13: 1496664841
DOWNLOAD EBOOKJump on your horse, and prepare for an adventure. Deliver the mail along with the brave employees of the Pony Express as they face dangerous terrain, frightful weather, and hostile American Indians.
Author: Michael P. Spradlin
Publisher: Walker Childrens
Published: 2010-03-01
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780802796530
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn 1860, the first Pony Express rider set out on a trail from Missouri to California. With him, he carried a special delivery-the first mail ever carried by hand to the West. Over the next eleven days, he and many other riders would endure harsh weather, dangerous animals, and more, but nothing would diminish their unflagging determination and courage. Meticulously researched and gorgeously illustrated, Michael P. Spradlin and Layne Johnson's Off Like the Wind! brings to life an adventurous journey, full of suspense and excitement, that celebrates America's can-do attitude and pioneering spirit.
Author: Christopher Corbett
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2004-09-14
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 0767906934
DOWNLOAD EBOOK“WANTED. YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS. NOT OVER 18. MUST BE EXPERT RIDERS. WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED.” —California newspaper help-wanted ad, 1860 The Pony Express is one of the most celebrated and enduring chapters in the history of the United States, a story of the all-American traits of bravery, bravado, and entrepreneurial risk that are part of the very fabric of the Old West. No image of the American West in the mid-1800s is more familiar, more beloved, and more powerful than that of the lone rider galloping the mail across hostile Indian territory. No image is more revered. And none is less understood. Orphans Preferred is both a revisionist history of this magnificent and ill-fated adventure and an entertaining look at the often larger-than-life individuals who created and perpetuated the myth of “the Pony,” as it is known along the Pony Express trail that runs from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express is a story that exists in the annals of Americana where fact and fable collide, a story as heroic as the journey of Lewis and Clark, as complex and revealing as the legacy of Custer’s Last Stand, and as muddled and freighted with yarns as Paul Revere’s midnight ride. Orphans Preferred is a fresh and exuberant reexamination of this great American story.
Author: Jim DeFelice
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-05-08
Total Pages: 303
ISBN-13: 0062496794
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWestern Writers of America Spur Awards Finalist, Best Western Historical Nonfiction "A GROUNDBREAKING WORK. ... The first comprehensive history of the legendary transcontinental experiment in mail delivery in sixty years." —True West "This rollicking account of the daring enterprise known as the Pony Express brings its era and its legendary characters to life." —San Francisco Chronicle The new definitive history of the Pony Express by the #1 bestselling coauthor of American Sniper, illustrated with 50 images On the eve of the Civil War, three American businessmen launched an audacious plan to create a financial empire by transforming communications across the hostile territory between the nation’s two coasts. In the process, they created one of the most enduring icons of the American West: the Pony Express. Daring young men with colorful names like “Bronco Charlie” and “Sawed-Off Jim” galloped at speed over a vast and unforgiving landscape, etching an irresistible tale that passed into myth almost instantly. Equally an improbable success and a business disaster, the Pony Express came and went in just eighteen months, but not before uniting and captivating a nation on the brink of being torn apart. Jim DeFelice’s brilliantly entertaining West Like Lightning is the first major history of the Pony Express to put its birth, life, and legacy into the full context of the American story. The Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company—or “Pony Express,” as it came to be known—was part of a plan by William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell to create the next American Express, a transportation and financial juggernaut that already dominated commerce back east. All that stood in their way were almost two thousand miles of uninhabited desert, ice-capped mountains, oceanic plains roamed by Indian tribes, whitewater-choked rivers, and harsh, unsettled wilderness. The Pony used a relay system of courageous horseback riders to ferry mail halfway across a continent in just ten days. The challenges the riders faced were enormous, yet the Pony Express succeeded, delivering thousands of letters at record speed. The service instantly became the most direct means of communication between the eastern United States and its far western territories, helping to firmly connect them to the Union. Populated with cast of characters including Abraham Lincoln (news of whose electoral victory the Express delivered to California), Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody (who fed the legend of the Express in his Wild West Show), and Mark Twain (who celebrated the riders in Roughing It), West Like Lightning masterfully traces the development of the Pony Express and follows it from its start in St. Joseph, Missouri—the edge of the civilized world—west to Sacramento, the capital of California, then booming from the gold rush. Jim DeFelice, who traveled the Pony’s route in his research, plumbs the legends, myths, and surprising truth of the service, exploring its lasting relevance today as a symbol of American enterprise, audacity, and daring.
Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2017-01-11
Total Pages: 50
ISBN-13: 9781542469081
DOWNLOAD EBOOK*Includes pictures of important people, places, and events. *Explains the route of the Pony Express and accounts from Pony Express riders. *Includes footnotes and a bibliography for further reading. "I, [name], do hereby swear, before the Great and Living God, that during my engagement, and while I am an employee of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, I will, under no circumstances, use profane language, that I will drink no intoxicating liquors, that I will not quarrel or fight with any other employee of the firm, and that in every respect I will conduct myself honestly, be faithful to my duties, and so direct all my acts as to win the confidence of my employers, so help me God." - The oath taken by Pony Express riders Although it was only in operation for about 18 months, the Pony Express remains the most famous and romanticized mailing system in American history, and it still instantly brings to mind all of the old themes of the untamed frontier and the Wild West. Starting shortly before the Civil War erupted across the United States, the Pony Express connected the east and west by having riders deliver mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, a route setup by previous explorations and a system of relay stations and waypoints. When working in perfect unison, the Pony Express dramatically cut down the time it took to travel to California, with the mail traveling nearly 1,900 miles to California just 10 days after the beginning of the journey in Missouri. Naturally, the Pony Express also ran from west to east as well. Of course, part of the allure of the Pony Express is in the way it challenged riders and horses, which ties it to Americans' fond visions of the frontier as an untamed landscape that only the most pioneering and rugged individuals could survive. At the same time, the Pony Express needed small riders to reduce the weight being carried by the horses; Mark Twain described the Pony Express riders he saw as "usually a little bit of a man." To get from St. Joseph to Sacramento, riders would generally switch horses every 10 miles at a new stop, and riders traveled at all hours of the day, sometimes riding 20 straight hours to reach the destination on time. Riders typically traveled over 70 miles a day, working in tough conditions and not necessarily safe ones, given the fact that the routes forced them to contend with bandits and potentially hostile Native Americans nearby. The most notable disruption came during the Paiute War, when members of the Paiute tribe attacked Pony Express outposts, but it would ultimately be technological advances that made the Pony Express obsolete. The advent of telegraph lines in the early 1860s eventually made communication between east and west much faster, easier, and safe. The Pony Express: The History and Legacy of America's Most Famous Mail Service comprehensively examines the history of the Pony Express from beginning to end, explaining how it operated and who worked for it. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Pony Express like never before, in no time at all.
Author: Jessica Rusick
Publisher: Capstone Press
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 33
ISBN-13: 1496683935
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBy 1860, Americans had settled from coast to coast. How could mail get from east to west? The Pony Express! Brave Pony Express riders did whatever it took to get the mail delivered quickly. They faced many difficult choices along the way. Now the choices are yours. Would you rather encounter a grizzly bear or a mountain lion? Would you rather ride through driving snow or pouring rain? It's your turn to pick this or that!
Author: Bruce A. Glasrud
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 2016-09-28
Total Pages: 263
ISBN-13: 0806156503
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWho were the black cowboys? They were drovers, foremen, fiddlers, cowpunchers, cattle rustlers, cooks, and singers. They worked as wranglers, riders, ropers, bulldoggers, and bronc busters. They came from varied backgrounds—some grew up in slavery, while free blacks often got their start in Texas and Mexico. Most who joined the long trail drives were men, but black women also rode and worked on western ranches and farms. The first overview of the subject in more than fifty years, Black Cowboys in the American West surveys the life and work of these cattle drivers from the years before the Civil War through the turn of the twentieth century. Including both classic, previously published articles and exciting new research, this collection also features select accounts of twentieth-century rodeos, music, people, and films. Arranged in three sections—“Cowboys on the Range,” “Performing Cowboys,” and “Outriders of the Black Cowboys”—the thirteen chapters illuminate the great diversity of the black cowboy experience. Like all ranch hands and riders, African American cowboys lived hard, dangerous lives. But black drovers were expected to do the roughest, most dangerous work—and to do it without complaint. They faced discrimination out west, albeit less than in the South, which many had left in search of autonomy and freedom. As cowboys, they could escape the brutal violence visited on African Americans in many southern communities and northern cities. Black cowhands remain an integral part of life in the West, the descendants of African Americans who ventured west and helped settle and establish black communities. This long-overdue examination of nineteenth- and twentieth-century black cowboys ensures that they, and their many stories and experiences, will continue to be known and told.
Author: Rinker Buck
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2015-06-30
Total Pages: 464
ISBN-13: 1451659164
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA new American journey.
Author: Tim Peake
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-10-19
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13: 1473544947
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe awe-inspiring Sunday Times Bestseller from astronaut Tim Peake Shortlisted for the British Book Award 2018 'Amazing . . . A brilliant book' Chris Evans, BBC Radio 2 Have you ever thought of becoming an astronaut? Ask an Astronaut is Tim Peake's personal guide to life in space, based on his historic Principia mission, and the thousands of questions he has been asked since his return to Earth. How does it feel to orbit the earth ten times faster than a speeding bullet? What's it like to eat, sleep and go to the toilet in space? And where to next - the moon, mars or beyond? From training to launch, historic spacewalk to re-entry, Tim has a fascinating answer to everything you ever wanted to know. He reveals for readers of all ages the extraordinary secrets, cutting-edge science, and everyday wonders of life onboard the International Space Station. 'Everything you ever wanted to know about life in space' Times
Author: Henry James Forman
Publisher:
Published: 1925
Total Pages: 328
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDescribes the circumstances under which the Pony Express was founded, how it was organized, the rough territory and general hardships faced by the riders, and the tecgnological innovation that ended it.
