1862-64 25c Wells Fargo Pony Express, Blue on White Paper

Scarce Pony Express Stamp Can Be Yours

Now you can own a legendary Pony Express stamp. This issue is a piece of history and it's your chance to lock it safely away in your collection.

Why Was There Another Pony Express?

Before Wells Fargo began its own pony express service, the company ran stage coaches to deliver letters and packages. In 1862, with torrential rains making travel hard for stagecoaches going between Nevada Territory mining camps and the state of California, Wells Fargo organized a new "Pony." Unlike the original, this was a regional mail service called the Virginia City Pony Express. Ponies and riders could make the trip more easily and much faster than heavy stagecoaches over the rough and muddy terrain.

There was also a lot of competition for mail delivery in this period of westward expansion. It's not surprising Wells Fargo wanted to get in on the action. After all, they were partners in the first Pony Express, which had failed a year earlier after the completion of the transcontinental telegraph line.

1860s Wells Fargo Pony Express Cover to Yreka Gold Rush Pioneer

This Wells Fargo & Co. Virginia City Pony Express cover was carried from Virginia City, Nevada Territory to Yreka, Siskiyou County, California, along the historic Siskiyou Trail. It is addressed to “William McCormick Esquire,” almost certainly William McCormick Sr., who was appointed to a county office by the Governor of California, marking him as one of Siskiyou County’s early civic leaders.

In the early 1860s, Virginia City stood at the center of the famous Comstock Lode, whose mines produced millions of dollars in gold and silver for roughly seventeen years, helping to finance the Union during the Civil War. Demand for this mineral wealth was one of the reasons the region was organized as Nevada Territory and then admitted as a state in 1864. At the time this cover was mailed, Virginia City’s population was on the order of only a few thousand residents, yet it was already one of the most important mining towns in the West.

In 1862 Wells Fargo served the miners with a new Pony Express that cut the time between cities in half. The Pony Express took about 20 hours from Virginia City to San Francisco, instead of the usual three or four days (or more) by stagecoach.

At the other end of the trail, Yreka had begun as a Gold Rush camp after the March 1851 discovery of gold on the flats near Black Gulch. Quickly dubbed “the richest square mile on earth,” it became the seat of government for Siskiyou County and a supply center for northern mines. Gold was still actively mined in the Yreka district in 1862, and substantial production continued for many years thereafter.

This cover bears a 25¢ blue Wells Fargo Virginia City Pony Express stamp (Scott 143L8) in combination with the embossed U.S. postage, paying the premium express fee for rapid carriage between the Comstock and California. The cover is in respectable, collectible condition for a piece that has survived more than 160 years: the back flap shows a trimmed portion, but the front is fully intact with clear Wells Fargo imprint, Pony Express franking, and address.

Yreka is a fun name.  Mark Twain, in his biography told a local story that the camp’s name came from a bakeshop sign: the word “BAKERY” seen backward without the B, looked like “YREKA,” and that’s why miners named their town Yreka. Who knows?