Geocache it - Local man has a new way to explore the old Pony Express route

by Lacey Storer

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Webmaster comments in bold red

This is an excellent example of how geocaching and related activities are being used by museums, schools and other organizations to increase participation in their activities and make things interesting. 

Local resident Steve Allen wants people to take a trip along the old Pony Express route. The route, which was last used for mail delivery in October 1861, meanders through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and California.

But Mr. Allen doesn’t want travelers to just hop in the car and go. He wants them to geocache their way there.

Geocaching uses a Global Positioning System and the Web site www.geocaching.com to lead geocachers to find tiny caches of treasure. Geocachers log onto the site, find the coordinates of the cache, and then enter them into the GPS. Mr. Allen has spent the past four months finding coordinates that will take people along the Pony Express route, including stops here in St. Joe. He will be publishing his geocaching challenge on the Web site within the week.

“It’s a challenge-type cache, so you have to fulfill requirements,” he says. “That involves other caches and (finding) one at least in each of the eight states the Pony Express ran through.”

Mr. Allen says he’s working with the St. Joseph Convention and Visitors’ Bureau and the Pony Express Museum to get “first to find” prizes for those who finish the challenge and to bring in some publicity for the event.

Cindy Daffron, director of development for the Pony Express Museum, says the museum was eager to participate because the event brings a good mix of old and new.

“It kind of merges the old ideas of how the Pony Express riders would have done, and how today’s GPS does what those people used to do,” she says. “It seemed like a great blend, and a way for people to get to know about the Pony Express, and a great way to see what it really means.”

Mr. Allen says geocaching is an activity that’s done worldwide, but he hopes this Pony Express challenge will bring some publicity to St. Joseph and the Pony Express’ sesquicentennial. He hopes people will have finished the trail by that anniversary, which falls on April 3, 2010.

Even though this challenge is a large-scale one, he says he thinks it will draw in people.

“Geocachers are kind of different, and we do geocaching because we like the challenge of the hunt,” he says. “It’s the thrill, it’s the adventure, I guess, the challenge itself of ‘Can you do this?’”

Lifestyles reporter Lacey Storer can be reached at lstorer@npgco.com