Recently, using the U.S. Postal Service, I conducted some family business with a cousin who lives in Tucson, Arizona.  The papers he sent me were postmarked January 31.  The envelope arrived in Topeka, Kansas on February 11.  That totals 12 days in transit.  I don’t know if I should be supremely impressed with the Pony Express or supremely disgusted with the current state of the U.S. Postal Service.

Beginning in 1860, the Pony Express delivered mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in 10 days, regardless of weather conditions, using boys between 13 and 18 years of age, riding on horseback across the planes of Kansas and Nebraska and the high rolling hills and Rocky Mountains of southern Wyoming, across the salt flats of Utah and the desert of Nevada, and finally over the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.  Those young men had to endure extreme weather conditions (winter and summer).  Both horse and rider had to plunge into rivers; escape or fight off Indians; and avoid huge herds of bison, along with the occasional pack of wolves and isolated hungry mountain lions.

April 3 will be the 165th anniversary of the inaugural Pony Express ride.  Over those years, the USPS has invested hundreds of billions of dollars to acquire the latest technology for sorting and transporting mail.  In 2025, computer-controlled lasers sort thousands of pieces of mail every minute.  Bags of mail are loaded onto modern trucks that traverse modern highways at speeds exceeding 70 miles per hour, or they are placed into modern jet airplanes that travel in excess of 500 miles per hour.

The net result: The USPS added two days to the delivery time for an envelope traveling 500 miles fewer than the route used by the Pony Express.  Should I call Elon Musk?

Image: Ben Schumin via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.