Split Rock served as a relay station during the turbulent 18-month life of the Pony Express, which sped mail across the West in only 10 days at a gallop until the telegraph, the "talking wire," reached California by October 1861 and ended the venture. Mail relay stations stood 10 to 15 miles apart, each staffed by two to four men with extra horses, while about 500 western ponies were purchased for as much as $200 each and 80 riders were recruited from the West's most daring, determined, and tough wiry young fellows. Lightly equipped and armed, each rider covered about 70 miles round trip, changing horses at three relay stations and carrying over his saddle a mochila, a leather cover with four mail pouches. Postage for a single letter ranged from $1 to $5, and riders went day and night in all weather, stopping only long enough to transfer the precious mochila to a waiting horse in about two minutes, averaging 10 to 15 miles an hour across the West. The completion of the transcontinental telegraph line on October 24, 1861 doomed the Pony Express, and although Russell, Majors, Waddell and Company lost over $1 million on the venture, its brief career won worldwide attention and endured as an example of American enterprise, endurance, courage, and determination.