Here comes the Hashknife Pony Express!

Hashknife Pony Express Riders will arrive at the Post Office to pick up Payson mail Feb. 9 at 4:45 p.m.

The Hashknife Pony Express, scheduled to pick up the mail at the Payson Post Office Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 4:45 p.m., will be there “come hell or highwater”. It’s a saying that must have originated in the Old West and it now applies to a hardy group of volunteers, whole families who believe in bringing history to life.

From 1958 to the present some 30 riders and their support team, members of the Navajo County Sheriff’s Posse, have re-enacted the mail service that contributed to how the West was won. Traveling from Holbrook to Scottsdale, the riders and their ponies brave the elements and modern obstacles.


The Hashknife Pony Express, the oldest officially sanctioned Pony Express in the world, covers over 200 miles. They will travel by the Mogollon Rim past verdant forests of Ponderosa Pine to the time-tested stand of ancient Saguaros along the Beeline Highway to the Valley where the riders will kick off the Scottsdale Jaycees’ Parada del Sol celebration.


The mail service got its name from a tool used by chuck wagon cooks, who cut up meat to feed the cowboys on the range. The Hashknife brand identified the Aztec Land and Cattle Company which moved from Texas to Holbrook in 1866.


Later, in 1957, the Navajo County Sheriff's Posse retained limited use of the brand and the Hashknife brand now identifies the Pony Express. Each year, the riders deliver some 20,000 pieces of first class mail bearing the valued hand-stamped "Via Pony Express" official seal. 


The public can purchase letters to be picked up by the riders for $1 each at the Pine and Payson Post Offices. The letters are collected from barrels placed at each of the post offices along the route. The ride begins from the Holbrook Post Office. Riders are scheduled to arrive at the Payson Post Office to pick up the mail and hand stamp the letters at 4:45 p.m. and will be at the Buffalo Bar and Grill on the Beeline Highway at 7 p.m. that night. 
The following day the Hashknife Pony Express departs from the Payson Post Office at 10 a.m. They are scheduled to arrive in Scottsdale at noon the next day at the Hashknife Express statue on Marshall Way south of Camelback at the bridge west of Scottsdale Road.