About thirty miles north of the Kansas City metropolitan area is situated the historical city of St. Joseph, Missouri. It is here that the life span of the Pony Exhibit began and the life span of Jesse James concluded. Also known more familiarly as St. Joe, to the locals, this town acquired its start in 1826 when Joseph Robidoux, an area fur trader, established the Blacksnake Hills Trading Post with the Indians. In a short time, Robidoux developed a trading empire that stretched as far western world as the Rocky Mountains. The first post office in the region was housed in Robidoux’s trading post in 1840. When the Platte Purchase made his land area of the express of Missouri in 1837, the trading post developed into funds that was designed as St. Joseph on November 20,1843. Remaining relatively small, that evolved with the rare metal breakthrough in California that greatly accelerated westward migration. St. Joseph quickly became the last source and jumping off point before the many pioneers headed into the Wild Western on the Oregon Path. Thousands of settlers appeared by steamboat, while a huge selection of wagon trains lined the roads ready to be ferried over the Missouri River. In 1849 by themselves, some have projected that as much as 50,000 pioneers handed through St. Joseph. The city quickly became a bustling outpost and tough frontier town, as covered wagons, oxen, and provides purchased by the emigrants founded the economical basis for the town. Additional growth emerged to the location in 1859 as the railroad pushed western world to St. Joseph, further guaranteeing its role as a syndication point for the west. St. Joseph Missouri continued to be the westernmost point in the U.S. accessible by rail until following the Civil War. Also, St. Joseph’s proximity to the Missouri River put into its phenomenal growth. In 1860, St. Joseph became the head office and releasing point for the Pony Exhibit. The first successful Pony Exhibit run, from St. Joseph, to Sacramento, California occurred on April 3, 1860, when a lone rider on a bay mare galloped from Pike’s Maximum Stables in St. Joseph. Before the advent of the Pony Exhibit, the railroads and telegraph lines lengthened no further west than St. Joseph, and mail traveled western by stagecoach and wagons, a trip that could take weeks, if it attained all. The Pony Exhibit alleviated this issue with riders who could drastically reduce the timeframe it required for the email to be shipped. The Pony Express is credited with assisting to keep California in the Union by providing rapid communication between your two coasts. News of the election of Abraham Lincoln to america presidency in 1860 and of the outbreak of the American Civil Battle in 1861 come to California via the Pony Express. While the Pony Express dramatically better the communication between the east and western, it was a financial catastrophe for its owners. After the Pacific Telegraph Company completed its line to San Francisco in October, 1861,…

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