In Bartlett

DAY THIRTY-FIVE: Tonight we're in Bartlett. Going back, we stayed in Marysville, KS Friday night and Sat. a.m., we got involved in a Katherine  Hepburn, Cary Grant movie titled Holiday, which was delightful, and we barely made it out of the room by 11 a. m. check out time. We ate at a locally owned restaurant, the Wagon Wheel, and looked around town. We got a laugh out of this sign in a shop window across the street:

The owner explained that the joke was you had to go by a barber shop to get in the back door.

We went on to St. Joseph, MO, which has several historical museums. We spent some time at the Pony Exoress Museum. St. Jo (as locals call it) was the eastern terminus of the Pony Express which ran the U.S. Mail by horse about twice a week to Sacramento CA for about 17 months from April 1860 to Oct. 1861, when it was rendered obsolete by the telegraph. Average delivery time was 10 days. 

 Model of Johnny Fry , thought by some to be the first rider, a 19 year old boy. 

Models of the founders of the Pony Express - Russell, Majors and Waddell. Russell was born in Vermont. The whole operation required an astonishing degree of vision, planning and risk and the company ended up going bankrupt. But not before it caught the imagination of millions and created a colorful history. 

A section of the map of the route. Swing Stations were about fifteen miles apart, where a rider would change horses. Home stations were about 75 miles apart where riders would rest and then return to their origin with the mail in the opposite direction. There were about 185 stations in all. 

                   The entire route. 

Down the street was the Jesse James House. It was too late to go in. Too bad, because I have a James in my family tree who is thought to have been related to Jesse. Maybe that's why I feel a tug whenever I walk by a bank !

                Jesse James House

We left St. Jo after 5 pm and arrived in Columbia, MO about 7pm, got our room and went for supper at the Flat Branch Pub, a favorite spot. Katie was out with a friend Sat. eve, but we had breakfast with her Sunday a.m. at Cafe Berlin, and caught up on her news. She had just turned in a script she had written for a short movie in her screenwriting class. Maybe someday it will become a movie and we'll get to see it!

After breakfast we left for Bartlett, taking a bit different route than usual, stopped in Bloomington IL for a bite to eat and arrived in Bartlett after 7pm, in time to see Downton Abbey.