Pony Express

The brownish red stamp at the center of this page, the second stamp on the third row, shows a rider and a horse carrying mail. The Pony Express was a private express mail service that carried mail from Missouri to California. This was not part of the post office. And yet, it’s a post office legend, as if it was something they did in the early days. It’s somewhat the basis for the background story of the film, The Post Man.

Three men founded the Pony Express business. Besides the hundreds of people involved in support operations, they had eighty riders and four-hundred horses, and over one-hundred eighty stations spaced from ten to fifteen miles apart. A rider would be given a saddle bag containing letters and ride from one station to the next, take a short break and change horses before riding to the next station. Of course, the same rider probably didn’t make the entire circuit.

The start of the Pony Express’ 1900-mile route was in St. Joseph, Missouri. From there they would travel through and around the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming. They’d then go to Salt Lake City, Utah and on to Carson City, Nevada. They’d ride through the Sierra mountain range to Sacramento, California. After that, they’d take a boat to San Francisco. From one end of the line to the other, it took ten days.

The business lasted only eighteen months: It ended when the first transcontinental telegraph lines were installed, linking the eastern states to California and the western territories. It’s quite a tight example of how new technology can clobber a business.

Note

This album page is also complete. I might have designed it differently: I would have put the top two rows, the famous American stamps at the bottom. The layout here has a downward wedge shape. I prefer a more upward pattern.

Contains 19 spots: own 19 – 19 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Mar 17, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

American Artists

1.1	✓	884	Gilbert Charles Stuart	1c (sep 1940) comm., bright blue green
1.2	✓	885	James Whistler	2c (sep 1940) comm., pink carmine
1.3	✓	886	Augustus St-Gaudens	3c (sep 1940) comm., bright red violet
1.4	✓	887	Daniel Chester French	5c (sep 1940) comm., ultramarine
1.5	✓	888	Frederic Remington	10c (sep 1940) comm., dark brown

Engineers, Inventors & Inventions

2.1	✓	889	Eli Whitney	1c (oct 1940) comm., bright blue green
2.2	✓	890	Samuel F. B. Morse	2c (oct 1940) comm., pink carmine
2.3	✓	891	Cyrus Hall McCormick	3c (oct 1940) comm., bright red violet
2.4	✓	892	Elias Howe	5c (oct 1940) comm., ultramarine
2.5	✓	893	Alexander Graham Bell	10c (oct 1940) comm., dark brown

Other

3.1	✓	896	Idaho Statehood Fiftieth Anniversary	3c (jul 1940) comm., bright violet
3.2	✓	894	Pony Express Rider Eightieth Anniversary	3c (apr 1940) comm., brown red
3.3	✓	898	Coronado & Captains Gerald Cassidy	3c (sep 1940) comm., violet
4.1	✓	895	The Three Graces Botticelli	3c (apr 1940) definitive, bright violet
4.2	✓	897	Wyoming Statehood Fiftieth Anniversary	3c (jul 1940) comm., brown violet
4.3	✓	902	Emancipation Proclamation 13th Amendment - 75 Years	3c (oct 1940) comm., deep violet

National Defense

5.1	✓	899	Statue of Liberty Industry & Agriculture	1c (oct 1940) comm., bright blue green
5.2	✓	900	Anti-Aircraft Gun Army & Navy	2c (oct 1940) comm., pink carmine
5.3	✓	901	Torch of Enlightenment Security, Edu, Conserv. & Health	3c (oct 1940) comm., bright violet

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.