The Expressmen

The Old West #9

by David Nevin

Examines the operations of the Pony Express and freight and stagecoach lines and discusses their importance to the development of the West. Time-Life Book's pictorial recounting of the history of the Western frontier, its people, industries, and alluring stories of courage.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Westerns, Reference, American History

240 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

David Reinhardt Nevin was born in Washington. His father, a veterinarian in the US Army when it had a horse cavalry, was soon assigned to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Mr. Nevin joined the US Navy as a teenager and served in the Pacific. After the war he did poorly in college, but could write well enough to be hired as a police reporter for The Brownsville (Texas) Herald. That led to work for Time and Life magazines.

Reviews

[Autumn Kearney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Expressman is a book from The Old West Series by Time-Life. This book, like all books in the series, was extensively researched. The illustrations were beautiful. My favorite ones were paintings by Charles M. Russell. He did an amazing job capturing real-life scenes from people’s lives. There were some black & white photos as well. The cover was made from tooled leather. The book was made to look and feel like a horse’s saddle.

[Jason Crow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This part of the series does what The Old West series does so well. Although there are a lot of individual stories about the men and women who made the west, this book also goes into the broader logistical aspects of how the people and the stuff got out to the frontier for use. If you want to think about the West in a new way, this is a good book to read.

[JC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written and researched. I knew some of the stories of the overland freight and mail pioneers but this gave a good detailed description. Very cool.

[Henry Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

The additional detail on parts of history greatly expands my understanding.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rich looking volumes of the Time-Life series, "The Old West," is represented here by the volume "The Expressmen." In 1858, President James Buchanan said that east and west would someday be bound (Page 7): "by a chain of Americans which can never be broken." In fact, that chain was being developed by "the expressmen" (entrepreneurs of freight and stagecoach services) and the Pony Express.

Chapter 1 examines "A continent's lengthening lifelines." The first section is entitled, properly enough, "Launching a war against distance and time." The vast space of the United States in the mid-19th century created great logistical problems. How to transmit information (before telegraph)? How to get supplies across large distances? The chapter begins with small steps of an entrepreneur in California getting mail and newspapers to those working the goldfields. Pack mule trains were one of the methods used. Page 20 has an insert that shows the various routes across the West (including the Pony Express route). Page 33 has a nice illustration--the Oxbow Route's westbound schedule for stagecoaches).

Chapter 2? "Caravans on a Crucial Mission." Here, we read about wagon trains heading west. There are some fine photographs in this chapter. Pages 58-59 display different formations for a wagon train (Who knew?). Chapter 3 examines the Pony Express, with many nice details. The perils, including inclement weather. The faces of riders appear on pages 116-121. Then, chapter 4 gives us entree to the stagecoach. The role of entrepreneur Ben Holladay starts the chapter off. The Concord Coach, a major conveyance, is depicted on pages 136-137. Other companies in the business are considered as well (e.g., Butterfield).

And so on. Overall, this book is a nice introduction to the logistics binding east to west across a vast expanse of land--before the railroad and telegraph created the tools to efficiently move information and goods and people.