- published: 04 Apr 2012
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Bacchus Marsh is an urban centre and suburban locality in Victoria, Australia located approximately 50 kilometres (30 mi) west of the state capital Melbourne and 14 kilometres (9 mi) west of Melton at a near equidistance to the major cities of Melbourne, Ballarat and Geelong. The formerly small town was reclassed as a Significant Urban Area by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2011 and officially became part of the Melbourne metropolitan area. The urban area sprawls to the north and south of the Western Freeway with a total population of 14,913 people. The central locality (suburb) by the same name is home to 5,760 people and contains the central business district. Bacchus Marsh is the largest urban area in the local government area of Shire of Moorabool.
Traditionally a market garden area, producing a large amount of the region's fruits and vegetables in recent decades it has transformed into the main commuter town on the Melbourne-Ballarat corridor with its affordable starter homes proving popular.
The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, by horseback, using a series of relay stations.
Officially operating as the Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express Company of 1859, which in 1860 became the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, this firm was founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell all of whom were notable in the freighting business.
During its 19 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days. From April 3, 1860 to October 1861, it became the West's most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the United States.
The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific coast was prompted largely by California's newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population. After gold was discovered there in 1848, thousands of prospectors, investors and businessmen made their way to California, at that time a new territory of the U.S. By 1850, California entered the Union as a free state. By 1860, the population had grown to 380,000. The demand for a faster way to get mail and other communications to and from this westernmost state became even greater as the American Civil War approached.