The Night the Pony Express Reached San Francisco, by Boat
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The most famous horseback mail service in American history finished its first run to San Francisco on the water. At 12:38 in the morning on April 14, 1860, the river steamer Antelope tied up at the Broadway wharf with the first Pony Express mail from the East, and the city was awake to meet it.
Ten days from Missouri
The mail had left St. Joseph, Missouri, on April 3. Riders carried it in relays across the plains, the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada, and it reached Sacramento at 5:25 on the afternoon of April 13. From there the last leg was not ridden at all. Horse, rider and mail went down the river by steamboat.
Before that night, mail from the East took at least three weeks to reach San Francisco. A plaque in the city lists the choices of the day: 28 days by ship through Nicaragua, 23 days by overland stage, 10 to 13 days by Pony Express.
The welcome
A committee had met that evening to plan the celebration. When the Antelope arrived, a band and several fire engine companies led the rider into the city. There were bonfires and speeches, and the party ran until nearly morning. That first mail held 85 pieces.
The other direction
The first eastbound mail had left San Francisco on the afternoon of April 3, from the Alta Telegraph office on Montgomery Street. A horse and rider carried it to the waterfront, and a river steamer took it up to Sacramento, where the real riding began.
Eighteen months
The Pony Express ran from April 1860 to October 1861. Plaques at Clay and Montgomery streets mark where it reached San Francisco. This is one entry in the full Bay Area horse history timeline.
Sources
National Park Service, Pony Express Historic Resource Study (the arrival and the celebration)
Frajola, "Pony Express Mail, 1860-1861" (times and the count of the first mail)
San Francisco Fire Department Museum, newspaper reports of April 13 and 14, 1860
"The Pony Express and San Francisco" (the plaque texts)