{"id":7384,"date":"2025-12-14T20:33:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=7384"},"modified":"2025-12-14T20:33:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:33:50","slug":"pony-bobs-trail-the-real-story-linking-a-pony-express-legend-to-placervilles-frontier-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2025\/12\/14\/pony-bobs-trail-the-real-story-linking-a-pony-express-legend-to-placervilles-frontier-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Pony Bob\u2019s Trail: The Real Story Linking a Pony Express Legend to Placerville\u2019s Frontier Past"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
The Last Ride of Pony Bob Haslam<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
As told from Jackass Saloon, Old Placerville \u2014 Spring 1860<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
By the time spring crept over the Sierra and the pines whispered of snowmelt in their roots, men in Placerville spoke in hushed awe of a rider named Pony Bob Haslam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
He weren\u2019t from these parts at all \u2014 born in the foggy streets of London in the year of our Lord 1840 \u2014 but by the time he\u2019d hit his twentieth year, he\u2019d taken up the saddle in Salt Lake Territory, worked a ranch and carried dispatches for the government like a man born to his horse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
They called him \u201cPony Bob,\u201d and by God, he\u2019d earned it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Word came down along the trail that spring of \u201960 that the Paiute had taken to the warpath and stations lay empty where riders once changed mounts. Fear ran thick as dust in a summer gale. Yet Pony Bob, riding for the Pony Express, did not flinch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
He\u2019d left Friday\u2019s Station early one May morn with a mochila full of mail, planning his usual seventy-five mile run to Buckland\u2019s Station. But when he pulled up at Buckland and dismounted, eager for a fresh mount, the relief rider flat refused to take the mail \u2014 cowed by rumors of Indians burning stations and stalking riders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Pony Bob spat in the dust, reined up his mount, and said, \u201c\u2018Tis no business of mine to shirk.\u201d Within minutes he was back in the saddle, riding on through empty stations, the sun burning high and his horse\u2019s breath coming in steamy gusts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
From Carson River to Carson Sink, Sand Springs to Cold Springs, Bob rode on. Water was scarce. The miles stretched ever onward, dusty and unkind. Yet he rode. By the time he handed off the mail at Smith\u2019s Creek, near four-score miles beyond his layover, he had covered an unbroken 190 miles without so much as a ten minute rest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
After a nine-hour rest \u2014 because even the fiercest must sleep \u2014 Pony Bob mounted again, this time to carry the westbound mail. At Cold Springs he found the station burned, the keeper slain, all stock gone. Unmoved, he rode through gathering darkness, through ringed bands of warriors and past danger unseen, straight as though guided by Providence itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
By the time he reached Buckland\u2019s again, and finally rode home to Friday\u2019s Station, the ledger read some 380 miles in fewer than two days \u2014 the longest journey any Pony Express rider ever laid hoof to ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
In later years, Bob would tell folks in Salt Lake and Chicago about his rides \u2014 about the thunder of hooves and the bite of arrowheads \u2014 and folks would pay good coin to hear him. He worked for Wells Fargo, scouted for the Army, even rode with his old friend Buffalo Bill Cody on peaceful missions; yet none stirred the blood of listeners like his tale of that spring when the West itself seemed set on fire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
By the time he drew his last breath in Chicago\u2019s winter cold of 1912, newspapers across the land remembered him as a man who knew no fear \u2014 a horseman unmatched, a scout unsurpassed, and the very spirit of the frontier writ large upon his soul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
And old timers in Placerville raise their mugs yet, to Pony Bob \u2014 the rider whose name outran the wind.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cPony Bob\u201d Haslam is a fixture of Gold Rush lore in Placerville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"large":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"darknews-slider-full":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"darknews-featured":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"darknews-medium":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art.jpg",600,382,false],"darknews-medium-square":["http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Pony-Bob-Haslam-Art-350x350.jpg",350,350,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"LifeStyle<\/a>","tag_info":"LifeStyle","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7386,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384\/revisions\/7386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}