Still Riding to Glory

New treasures keep the beloved Pony Express alive.

- JANA BOMMERSBACH

Golden pieces. That’s how Cindy Daffron sees the treasures that find their way to her Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri.

She can be sitting in her director’s office in the former Pike’s Peak Stables that launched the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, and the voice on the phone can say something as hair-on-your-arm-raising as, “Do you know a William Pridham?”

Of course she knew William Pridham— he was one of the 80 skinny teenagers who raced the mail across the West on their fast ponies. Pridham rode throughout most of the Pony Express history, which lasted just 18 months and 23 days, but remains an iconic example of America’s “can do” spirit. He went on to work for Wells Fargo for 50 years, rising to assistant superintendent in Los Angeles.