"Men wanted," the notice read - and it was real men who were wanted. After all, those working for the Pony Express - a short-lived but legendary postal service in the United States - might even risk their lives when carrying out assignments on horseback across the Wild West. The relay of riders, which has featured in countless films and novels, sent off its last mailman 150 years ago.
Today, it is hard to imagine that a message across the United States took weeks or months to arrive. A letter from New York to San Francisco, for instance, went first to South America. Because the Panama Canal was yet to be built, the post went over land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast.
A ship then transported it to California, where it was only weeks later that people could read about who had been elected president or whether a war had already broken out between the North and the South. Three businessmen tried to change that, with an idea that was actually an old one: mailmen transporting post as a relay.
The problem was the conditions in the United States, where the area between the coasts was little developed with endless prairies, hot deserts and Native Americans who were becoming increasingly hostile - not to mention the Rocky Mountains. The mailmen were not allowed to carry weapons. The Pony Express included about 190 stations, with 420 horses galloping continuously across the plains.
Horses were swapped at every station, which were separated by distances of 15 to 20 kilometres. The riders had to hold out a bit longer - for four or five stations - before handing over the mail to the next rider, in an exchange that was not allowed to last more than two minutes. The longest ride for an individual mailman was 384 miles - a good 600 kilometres.
Mail from a distance of 3,000 kilometres arrived in 10 days. The speed had its price, and people using the service had to be willing to pay a hefty 5 dollars. There was plenty of mail, however, as California was booming after the gold rush of 1849. In addition, slavery had divided the nation between the North and South, and mail was important in reuniting it, according to historian Glenn Bradley.
The route extended from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The arrival of the first letter was welcomed with a celebration, with bands playing, people dancing and gunfire into the air. The Pony Express riders could earn as much as 150 dollars a month, at a time when many unskilled workers were happy with 5 dollars a month. The riders were mostly young, some just 17 or 18 years old.
Legendary Pony Express riders included William Cody, known for his iron will - and hardened backside. He later became a scout, a buffalo hunter and eventually led a Wild West show that delighted spectators around the world, including German Emperor Wilhelm II. By then, Cody was known as Buffalo Bill. The dispatch transported fastest by Pony Express was the inaugural address President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. New riders were brought in, and the message arrived on the West Coast in seven days, 17 hours.
But then, the transcontinental telegraph to Sacramento was opened on October 24, 1861, and the Pony Express shut down two days later. It had existed for just one and a half years. The headquarters in Patee House in Saint Joseph were closed down. A good two decades later, a young man who was being hunted by the entire country was shot down in a neighbouring house. He was Jesse James, the most famous outlaw of the Wild West - and the stuff of legend, just like the Pony Express.