The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail. Presently, "Pony Express" is a trademark for postal services in the US (by the United States Postal Service). "This little volume has but one purpose - to give an authentic, useful, and readable account of the Pony Express. This wonderful enterprise played an important part in history, and demonstrated what American spirit can accomplish. And, strange to say, little of a formal nature has been written concerning it." In spite of this, The Pony Express was a great financial investment to the US. It reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days, becoming the West's most direct means of east–west communication, and was vital for tying the new U.S. state of California with the rest of the United States.