Editing Pony Express (section)

===First riders===
[[File:Riders Pony Express.jpg|thumb|{{center|Pony Express riders:<br />"Billy" Richardson, Johnny Fry,<br />Charles Cliff, Gus Cliff}}]]

The identity of the first westbound rider to depart St. Joseph has been disputed, but currently most historians have narrowed it down to either [[Johnny Fry]] or [[Johnson William Richardson|Billy Richardson]].{{sfnp|Root|Hickman|1946|loc=Note 358}}<ref name="NPSStables" />{{sfnp|Godfrey|1994|loc=[http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/poex/hrs/hrs2e.htm Chap 2 p. 5]}}<ref name="museum" /> Both Expressmen were hired at St. Joseph for A. E. Lewis' Division, which ran from St. Joseph to Seneca, Kansas, a distance of {{convert|80|mi}}. They covered at an average speed of {{convert|12+1/2|mph|0}}, including all stops.{{sfnp|Bradley|1913|p= {{page needed|date=June 2021}}}} Before the mail pouch was delivered to the first rider on April 3, 1860, time was taken out for ceremonies and several speeches. First, Mayor M. Jeff Thompson gave a brief speech on the significance of the event for St. Joseph. Then William H. Russell and Alexander Majors addressed the gala crowd about how the Pony Express was just a "precursor" to the construction of a transcontinental railroad. At the conclusion of all the speeches, around 7:15&nbsp;pm, Russell turned the mail pouch over to the first rider. A cannon fired, the large assembled crowd cheered, and the rider dashed to the landing at the foot of Jules Street, where the ferry boat ''Denver'', under a full head of steam, alerted by the signal cannon, waited to carry the horse and rider across the Missouri River to Elwood, Kansas Territory.{{sfnp|Settle|Settle|1955|p=58}}{{sfnp|Bradley|1913|p= 31}} On April 9 at 6:45&nbsp;pm, the first rider from the east reached Salt Lake City, Utah. Then, on April 12, the mail pouch reached Carson City, Nevada Territory, at 2:30&nbsp;pm. The riders raced over the Sierra Nevada, through Placerville, California, and on to Sacramento. Around midnight on April 14, 1860, the first mail pouch was delivered by the Pony Express to San Francisco. With it was a letter of congratulations from [[James Buchanan|President Buchanan]] to California [[John G. Downey|Governor Downey]] along with other official government communications, newspapers from New York, Chicago, and St. Louis, and other important mail to banks and commercial houses in San Francisco. In all, 85 pieces of mail were delivered on this first trip.{{sfnp|Bradley|1913|pp=46–47}}

James Randall is credited as "the first eastbound rider" from the San Francisco Alta telegraph office, since he was on the steamship ''[[:File:Steamer antelope.jpg|Antelope]]'' to go to Sacramento.<ref>
{{cite book
|title=The Pony Express
|author=Jean Williams
|publisher=Compass Point Books
|year=2002
|isbn=978-0-7565-0301-7
|page=27
}}</ref> Mail for the Pony Express left San Francisco at 4:00&nbsp;pm, carried by horse and rider to the waterfront, and then on by steamboat to Sacramento, where it was picked up by the Pony Express rider. At 2:45&nbsp;am, William (Sam) Hamilton was the first Pony Express rider to begin the journey from Sacramento. He rode all the way to Sportsman Hall Station, where he gave his ''mochila ''filled with mail to Warren Upson.{{sfnp|Godfrey|1994|loc=[http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/poex/hrs/hrs8b.htm Chap 8 p. 3]}} A California Registered Historical Landmark plaque at the site reads:

{{blockquote|This was the site of Sportsman's Hall, also known as the Twelve-Mile House. The hotel was operated in the late 1850s and 1860s by John and James Blair. A stopping place for stages and teams of the Comstock, it became a relay station of the central overland Pony Express. Here, at 7:40&nbsp;am, April 4, 1860, Pony rider William (Sam) Hamilton, riding in from Placerville, handed the Express mail to Warren Upson who, two minutes later, sped on his way eastward.|Plaque at Sportsman Hall}}