Annual Pony Express reenactment commemorated

Postmark Pursuit by Linn’s Staff

The National Pony Express Association (NPEA) is offering a postmark highlighting the organization’s annual commemorative re-ride of the Pony Express route between Sacramento, Calif., and St. Joseph, Mo. The special cancel features a postrider traveling along a linear trail map that includes some of the major stops on the original route.

Each June, over a 10-day period, members of the NPEA recreate the delivery of mail by couriers on horseback traveling through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. This year’s event marks 165 years since the founding in April 1860 of the express mail service. The 2025 reenactment took place from June 11 to 21.

As part of the yearly re-creation, letters are carried in a mochila (saddle bag) over the original 1,966-mile trail. The eight-state event is conducted 24 hours a day until the mail is delivered to its destination.

More than 750 riders participate, and around 1,000 letters are mailed each year. As riders make their way between St. Joseph and Sacramento, there are scheduled exchanges along the route where riders hand off the mochila and a new rider continues the delivery. The re-creation travels east in odd numbered years and west in even numbered years.

The NPEA is an all-volunteer, historical organization with the purpose of identifying, reestablishing and marking the original trail.

In the mid 1960s, a group of California horse and trail enthusiasts banded together and started doing annual reenactments of the Pony Express along a part of the original route. In 1977 the group formed the NPEA, which became incorporated on March 3, 1978.

Each year the association extended the ride farther east and in 1980 began riding and carrying mail the entire distance between Sacramento and St. Joseph.

During the re-creation, the progress of the postriders can now be viewed online at the NPEA’s website. A GPS device is carried in the mochila, which pings every five minutes, marking the location of horse and rider along a map of the trail.

To obtain the postmark, address your request to:

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