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Orphans Preferred
The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express
New York : Broadway Books, 2003.
Format: Book
Edition: First edition.
Description: 268 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
"WANTED. YOUNG, SKINNY, WIRY FELLOWS. NOT OVER 18. MUST BE EXPERT RIDERS. WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED." --California newspaper help wanted ad, 1860 The Pony Express is one of the most celebrated and enduring chapters in the history of the United States. It is a story of the all-American traits of bravery, bravado and entrepreneurial risk that are part of the very fabric of the Old West. No image of the American West in the mid-1800s is more familiar, more beloved, and more powerful than that of the lone rider galloping the mail across hostile Indian territory. No image is more revered. And none is less understood. Although rooted in actual events and real people, the saga of the Pony Express has become an American legend, embellished in everything from Mark Twain'sRoughing It, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and dime novels, to the western film classics of John Ford, the art of Frederic Remington, and scores of children's books.Orphans Preferredis both a revisionist history of this magnificent and ill-fated adventure and an entertaining look at the often larger-than-life individuals who created and perpetuated the myth of "the Pony," as it is known along the Pony Express trail that runs from Saint Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express is a story that exists in the annals of Americana where fact and fable collide, a story as heroic as the journey of Lewis and Clark, as complex and revealing as the legacy of Custer's Last Stand and as muddled and freighted with yarns as Paul Revere's midnight ride.Orphans Preferredis a fresh and exuberant reexamination of this great American story.
Contents:
How the story goes, or what do we know? -- In the days of the pony -- "Capital fellows" - Russell, Majors & Waddell -- "A wild, uninhabited expanse" -- "The greatest enterprise of modern times!!" -- Pyramid Lake -- "Orphans preferred" and "The worst imps of satan" -- Captain Sir Richard Burton -- The telegraph: "Our little friend the pony is to run no more" -- After the pony -- Mark Twain ..."To the territory ahead" -- Billy Cody's big adventure -- Buffalo Bill's wild west: "Wholly free from sham and insincerity" -- The colonel and his thrilling and truthful history -- Pony Bob Haslam: a true rider of the purple sage -- "Memory at the best is treacherous": the story of the story of the pony express and how it grew -- The borderland of fable -- Broncho Charlie Miller, "the last of the pony express riders" -- The girl who remembered Johnny Frey.
ISBN:
0767906926
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
HISTORY North Am. US Westward Cor | Main (Downtown) | Available by placing a hold, Repository - Adult | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-263).