U. S. Mail In Utah, 1850 to 1869
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U. S. Mail In Utah, 1850 to 1869
(The focus of this page is to show a basic timeline of how the U. S. mail was moved through Utah prior to the completion of the railroad in 1869.)
The history of transporting U.S. Mail between the Missouri River, Salt Lake City, and California during the 1850s and 1860s evolved rapidly due to shifting geopolitics, winter weather obstacles, business rivalries, and technological breakthroughs.
From the United States Postal Service website.
Between 1789, when the federal government of the United States began, and 1860, the United States' population grew from about 4 million people to more than 31 million. Its territory extended into the Midwest in 1787 through the Northwest Ordinance, and reached down the Mississippi River and west to the Rocky Mountains after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
Until the late 1840s, American emigration to California was a mere trickle, but two events in 1848 opened the floodgates:
- In early February, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican American War, ceding more than half of Mexico’s former territory to the United States. This included what is now the entire southwestern United States, from Texas to California, and also parts of Wyoming and Colorado.
- Although people at the time did not know it, just a week before the treaty was signed, James Marshall, building a sawmill for Captain John Sutter in Coloma, California, spotted gold in the water near the mill. That August, his discovery became headlines in eastern newspapers, and the Gold Rush was on.
California’s population exploded, and so did the need for connecting this population with the rest of the country – through the U.S. Mail.
Beginning in 1850, the U.S. Post Office initially attempted mail delivery across the central route via early, under-funded mail contracts. The first were the Woodson and Brown contracts to the east (Salt Lake City to Independence) and the Chorpenning and Woodward contracts to the west (Salt Lake City to Sacramento).
- The route east of Salt Lake City used by Woodson and Brown, between Independence and Salt Lake City, was along the traditional Oregon-Mormon Trail path following the Platte River, North Platte, and South Pass into Salt Lake City.
- The route west of Salt Lake City used by Chorpenning and Woodward, between Salt Lake City and California, was north of the Great Salt Lake and across northern Nevada following the Humboldt River, then over the Sierra Nevada mountain passes into California. Heavy winter snows over South Pass in Wyoming, the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, and the Sierra Nevada repeatedly stranded the wagons and mule trains carrying the mail, leading to months of lost mail and public outcry.
(View a map of these early mail routes, from Hafen's "The Overland Mail, 1849-1869")
(A common and regularly referenced source for early U.S. mail service and used and cited by numerous writers, is "The Overland Mail, 1849–1869" by LeRoy R. Hafen, published in 1926. The book entered the public domain on January 1, 2022. This is an excellent book, deeply researched and very complete in its coverage.)
"W. G. Chorpening [sic: Chorpenning], in the 1850s, was proprietor of the mail line from Sacramento east to the Utah capital, there connecting with the route from St. Joseph, Mo. In the spring of 1858, Chorpening purchased ten stage-coaches, with all the necessary supplies for the route, and the vehicles were received at Atchison in August, 1858, by Missouri river steamboat. The vehicles were at once put in condition and started on their long journey across the plains, drawn by mules, in charge of experienced drivers and plainsmen." ("The Overland Stage To California," By Frank A. Root and William Elsey Connelley, 1901, page 40)
"In the later 1850s George Chorpening operated the first regular stage line between Salt Lake and Sacramento, while Russell, Majors & Waddell were at the head of the line making trips once a week between St. Joseph and Salt Lake. The through California letter mail was then being carried twice a week between St. Louis and San Francisco on the southern route by John Butterfield, the New Yorker, but the bulk of the vast mail for the Pacific, consisting of papers, public documents, books, etc., was sent from New York around by the Isthmus on an ocean steamer, the schedule being twenty-three days." ("The Overland Stage To California," By Frank A. Root and William Elsey Connelley, 1901, page 607)
"The first overland shipment of mail left for Salt Lake City in 1850. Sam Woodson had won a contract to carry the mail to Salt Lake — twelve hundred miles — once a month, over the Oregon and Salt Lake Trail. Using pack mules, a mule team, and a wagon, he carried mail and packages, making the whole trip with the same animals, camping at night. Later, relay stations were set up and a stage service was introduced, but it was always beset by troubles and maintained a poor schedule. Still, it was the best to be had for several years to come." (Nick Eggenhofer, "Wagons, Mules and Men," page 154)
Due to winter blockages along the northern path, in 1858 the Post Office changed to a southern route, creating a major change in how U. S. Mail moved west. The new route used the Butterfield Overland Mail of the 1858-1861 period, when John Butterfield won a massive $600,000 annual contract to transport transcontinental mail via the Southern Route. This new southern route departed St. Louis, curving south through Fort Smith, and across Texas and Arizona, passing through Tucson and Yuma, to Los Angeles before heading north to San Francisco and Sacramento. It bypassed Salt Lake City entirely to guarantee year-round, snow-free delivery within 25 days. Salt Lake City was forced to rely on secondary, local mail routes such as Chorpenning's reduced northern service or the Old Spanish Trail running south to Los Angeles via Las Vegas.
While Butterfield ran the southern route, explorers and stage operators were proving the benefits of a direct central passage. The surveys of Howard Egan in 1855, and Army Captain James H. Simpson in 1859 identified a direct route straight across the Great Basin. This "Central Overland Route" went south from Salt Lake City to where the military post at Camp Floyd was set up in 1858, then west to the Deep Creek mountains and across central Nevada directly to Carson City, cutting 280 miles off of Chorpenning's old Humboldt River trail.
(Read more about Egan's Route across Central Nevada) (Includes information about the survey by Captain James Simpson in 1859)
(Archive.org - Howard R. Egan, "Pioneering the West, 1846–1878," 1916)
Before The Pony Express (1850-1860)
Mail West From Salt Lake City
Milestones:
- 1851 to 1854 - Northern Route (Salt Lake City to City of Rocks (Almo) in southern Idaho on the Raft River, then southwest into Nevada to the Humboldt River to Eagle Station (Carson City after 1858) and Genoa
- 1851 to 1854 (winter) - Southern Route (Salt Lake City to Las Vegas and San Bernardino to San Pedro)
- 1854 to 1858 - Southern Route
- 1858 (July-November) - Northern Route
- 1858 (Dec.) to 1860 - Central Route, Salt Lake City to Carson City by the Egan-Simpson Route (canceled)
- 1860 to 1862 - Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (includes Pony Express)
- 1861 - Overland telegraph completed
- 1862 to 1866 - Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company
- 1866 to 1869 - Wells, Fargo & Co.
The Chorpenning and Woodward mail route west from Salt Lake City represents the first formal overland mail contract linking California with Utah and the eastern states. Running between Sacramento and Salt Lake City, the service earned its popular but informal name of the "Jackass Mail" because operators relied on sure-footed pack mules to navigate the high Sierra snows and the arid Great Basin.
George Chorpenning Jr. and Absalom Woodward were awarded a contract by the U.S. Post Office Department in early 1851 at $14,000 per year for monthly service. The contracts called for a 30-day transit time each way along an approximately 910-mile trail. The inaugural trip left Sacramento on May 1, 1851. The mule train spent 16 days breaking paths through deep snow packs in the Sierra Nevada before reaching Carson Valley.
Stations along the Central Route were sparse, often spaced 70 or more miles apart. During the first 1851 trip, Chorpenning established a permanent supply post in the Carson Valley that eventually developed into Genoa, Nevada, on the far western edge of Utah Territory, at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
In 1851, Chorpenning and his partner, Absalom Woodward, were awarded a $14,000 contract by the U.S. Post Office Department to carry the U. S. mail between Salt Lake City and California. Their contract required them to transport mail once a month between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Placerville, California.
The route chosen was along what today is known as the California Historic Trail, north from Salt Lake City around the north end of Great Salt Lake and northwest to meet the California Cutoff of the Oregon Trail at City of Rocks on the Raft River. Then southwest using the Cutoff to Granite Pass to Goose Creek, then to the Humboldt River and across northern Nevada to the Humboldt Sinks and Carson Sinks and the Carson River to Genoa, possibly passing Fort Churchill. Then from Genoa across the Sierra Nevada range to Placerville and Sacramento. (Hafen, page 66)
The Chorpenning contract called for service once a month, leaving on the first of each month at 6 a.m. The first mail left Sacramento on May 3, 1851 and arrived in Salt Lake City on June 5th, in the charge of Mr. Chorpenning. It had taken 14 days alone to pass over the Sierra Nevada mountains. (Deseret News, June 14, 1851)
In late 1851, partner Absalom Woodward and his mail party were killed by Native Americans near the Malad River in northern Utah. After Woodward's death, Chorpenning took sole control of the operations.
Sierra snow blockades were severe. To maintain winter delivery, Chorpenning secured permission in 1853 to reroute mail by sea down to San Pedro (Los Angeles), then overland via the Old Spanish Trail (also known as the Mormon Road), passing from Los Angeles through San Bernardino and Las Vegas to Salt Lake City.
"The contractor on the route from Salt Lake City to Sacramento, in California, never having performed efficient service on that route, this department has entered into an arrangement with another contractor, who binds himself not only to perform the service as originally required, but also to establish and maintain a fortified post or station at Carson's Valley, which will, it is expected, increase the security of the mails, and afford protection to the numerous emigrant trains on their journey to California." (Report of the Postmaster-General for 1852, dated December 4, 1852)
After the carriers "endured frightful sufferings" due to severe winter weather, in February 1852 permission was obtained "to send the March mail down the coast to San Pedro and thence by the Cajon Pass and the Mormon trail to Salt Lake City. During the summer of 1852 the service continued to be performed across northern Nevada by way of the Humboldt River; but as winter approached, arrangements were made with the mail agent at San Francisco to carry the Utah mail via Los Angeles during the winter months." (Hafen, Page 64)
The Postmaster-General's report for the year 1857 showed that on March 3, 1857 Congress had instructed the Postmaster General to settle financial claims submitted by George Chorpenning, Jr., individually and as the surviving partner of Woodward & Chorpenning. Those claims included:
- Chorpenning claimed compensation for carrying U.S. mail via San Pedro, which the Post Office had denied because the contract of 1851 did not stipulate the exact route to be taken, whether by land across Nevada (Utah Territory at the time) using the so-called Northern Route, or by the combination sea from San Francisco to San Pedro, then by land to Salt Lake City. The settlement compensated Chorpenning for this extra service.
- The settlement required compensating Chorpenning for damages caused by the suspension/annulment of the mail route contract between Sacramento, California, and Salt Lake, Utah Territory, including full contract pay during its suspension from March 15 to July 1, 1853.
- Starting July 1, 1853, Chorpenning was awarded a set rate of $30,000 per year, which replaced his former $14,000 annual contract rate and his subsequent $12,500 annual contract rate for monthly mail service along the Sacramento–Salt Lake route.
April 28, 1853
"The statement about the revocation of the 'California Mail Contract,' as it was termed, has been ridiculously blundered. The facts are, Messrs. Woodward and Chorpenning held a contract for carrying a mail between Sacramento, California, and Salt Lake—compensation fourteen thousand dollars a year. In consequence of complaints of mail failures, Mr. Hubbard, late Postmaster General, took the service from them and gave it to W. L. Blanchard, at fifty thousand dollars a year. The only apparent reason for this enormous increase of pay is the insertion of a clause providing, in vague terms, for the establishment of a military post. As the Post Office Department has not yet assumed the duties of the War Department, the value of the clause can readily be estimated. It has recently come to light that the failures of the mail under the former contract arose from the trifling fact that one of the contractors was shot whilst in the discharge of the duty. Upon these facts being ascertained, Judge Campbell very properly rescinded the contract with Blanchard, and revived the former contract with the surviving contractor, thus doing justice, and saving a large sum of money besides." (New York Daily Herald, April 28, 1853)
The Daily Alta California [Sacramento] newspaper of December 1, 1853 reported in an item about the Mormons living in the San Bernardino Valley, "The distance from Salt Lake City is about 800 miles in a southwest direction. The road is good, considerably better than any other from Bear River to the Pacific. The greater part of the way there is plenty of water and grass, and in some places there is timber."
(Note that this refers to the difficult road from the Bear River northwesterly to City of Rocks on the Raft River, then southwesterly along the California Trail across northern Nevada by following the Humboldt River. This was the northern road followed by Chorpenning on his mail contract. Thus it is no surprise that Chorpenning chose this southern route to San Bernardino and San Pedro as a way to avoid the winter weather on the mountain passes.)
1854 Changes
New contract, April 1854
"In the [contract] lettings of 1854, the Utah-California mail route was changed to run from Salt Lake City over the Mormon trail to San Diego." (Hafen note: "This was in general the route discovered and explored by Jedediah Smith in 1826 and again traversed by him in 1827. J. C. Fremont returned from California by this route in 1844. The Mormons used it after 1847.") (Hafen, Page 66)
From U.S. Congressional Serial Set 789, page 712:
- Contract made with George Chorpenning, Jr., dated April 22, 1854, at $12,500: to commence July 1, 1854; to expire June 30, 1858.
- Leave Salt Lake City on the 20th of each month; arrive at San Diego by the 18th ot the next month.
- Leave San Diego on the 20th of each month; arrive at Salt Lake City by the 18th of the next month.
"The terminus on this mail route was changed from San Diego to San Pedro, November 13, 1854. - Chorpenning, Statement, Appendix, 7." (Hafen, Page 66)
(Hafen, page 66, notes that Howard Egan made a journey over this trail in the winter of 1849-1850. His diary gives a good description of the route. -Egan, W. M., editor. Pioneering the West, 1846-1878, pp. 169-180.)
(By the 1851-1858 period when the route was used by contractors for the U. S. mail, the trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles/San Pedro was well-established and was in regular use.)
(Read more about the Mormon Trail at FamilySearch.org; includes a map)
August 22, 1854
"Rather Slow. — By the arrival of the mails from Salt Lake on yesterday, via San Bernardino, we were placed in possession of files of the Desert News to May 25th. On the 3d of July we published full particulars of all interesting intelligence from Utah Territory down to June 4th, ten days later than our advices by this arrival. Dates to the 1st August from the Great Salt Lake City are fully due at this place." (Sacramento Daily Union, August 22, 1854)
Among the laws passed by Congress in 1854 in the most recent session were: "An act to provide for the construction of a military road from Great Salt Lake city, in the territory of Utah, to the eastern boundary of the State of California. Approved July 17, 1854. And, "An act constituting San Pedro, in California, a port of entry and delivery. Approved August 3, 1854." (Daily Alta California, September 2, 1854; the delays in receiving news of these new laws are an indication of how long it was taking the mail to reach California.)
Government payment on the Chorpenning contract became an issue almost immediately. The June 6, 1857 issue of the Washington Express newspaper made note of a long delayed settlement. Among the activities of the 34th Congress, 3rd Session, ending on March 3, 1857 was the passage of the "An act for the relief of George Chorpenning, Jr." authorizing the Postmaster General to settle claims and financial adjustments regarding U.S. mail delivery services:
- The Act authorized a pay increase for carrying mail via San Pedro, and supplying the post office in Carson's Valley.
- The Act granted full contract pay during the suspension period (March 15, 1853 – July 1, 1853). From July 1, 1853, onward through the contract's end, it set payment at $30,000, increased from the original contract rate of $14,000.
March 28, 1855
The Deseret News of March 28, 1855, published a notice by the Salt Lake City Postmaster that "The California mail, via Fillmore, Parowan, and Cedar City, U.T., and San Bernardino, Cal., to San Pedro, will leave the 1st day and arrived the 28th of every month." The notices continued on a weekly basis through February 1856. (Deseret News, March 28, 1855)
April 1, 1857
"Mr. Egan informs us that the Postmaster at San Francisco is very properly endeavoring to have such alterations made as will enable the down mail steamers to connect with our southern mail at San Pedro. According to present arrangements the last steamer of each month does not arrive at San Pedro until after the mail has left for Utah, thus leaving the largest, the latest, and the most important portion of our mail matter almost invariably one month behind its just time. This is a very ridiculous arrangement, inasmuch as the mail is but monthly at the best, and we trust that the Department at Washington will speedily alter schedule times so as to admit of forming connections on such long and important lines." (Deseret News, April 1, 1857)
Chorpenning's New Route, 1858
New contract, April 1858
In 1858, George Chorpenning changed the route of his mail contract from the Northern Route along the Humboldt River, to the central Nevada route. The route change was made to avoid the severe winters in the Goose Creek country that made the original northern route too difficult to continue using.
Chorpenning also secured a new contract upgrading the route to semi-monthly and eventually weekly mail coach service, adopting shorter trail through central Nevada pioneered by Howard Egan 1855 and U.S. Army Capt. James Simpson in 1859, using a route surveyed across central Nevada. The new path reportedly followed the Beckwith Trail to Ruby Valley.
(Read more about Capt. James Simpson's Route across Central Nevada) (Includes information about the route being pioneered by Howard Egan in 1855)
After establishing this new route, he dispatched a column of fifty wagons and over 300 animals from Salt Lake City on November 21, 1858. The first stage to use the new "Ruby Valley shortcut" departed on November 29, 1858. (Oregon-California Trails Association)
"Chorpenning (in April, 1858) had taken another contract for carrying the mails between Salt Lake and Placerville, Cal., in four-horse coaches. It appeared that he was specially selected to do this service, because in his previous action in carrying out his contract he had given the strongest proof of efficiency and fidelity, so much so as to be a preferred contractor. But, owing to the failure of the Post-Office appropriation bill in March, 1859, the Postmaster-General deemed it necessary to reduce the mail-service thereby entailing heavy burdens upon this contractor in largely reducing his pay while the expenses of his line went on. Thus a dispute arose between Mr. Chorpenning and the Post-Office Department as to the rate of compensation which he should receive. Finally, in May, 1860, and while it had still two years to run, the contract was annulled." (George Chorpenning, June 16, 1874, 43d Congress, 1st Session. House of Representatives. Report No. 653)
November 1859
A financial "attachment" was placed on the property and livestock of the western division of George Chorpenning's company. Upon hearing of this, Howard Egan took it upon himself to take the first coach to travel along the new central route, all the way from Salt Lake City to Placerville. Egan was superintendent of the company's eastern division, and had passed along the entire eastern division in just five days. He then sent a person to Placerville to act as an agent to accept any mail being presented for delivery to Salt Lake City. The delivery of the mail to Chorpenning's own agent in Placerville was being delayed by persons wanting to take the contract for themselves, and who were using political tactics to cause those delays. (Deseret News, November 8, 1859)
After the Pony Express started in April 1860, and due to regular delays and pressure from local, regional and national politicians, on May 11, 1860, the Postmaster General cancelled the existing mail contract with George Chorpenning and offered it to Russell & Jones' Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Co. The contract paid enough to cover the cost of running the Pony Express for mail between Salt Lake City and Sacramento.
"Mail Items — Major Chorpenning has lost the contract for the Salt Lake and California line. Messrs. Russell and Jones, who have had the contract for the eastern division of the line from St. Joseph, are the lucky successors." (The Salt Lake City Mountaineer, May 26, 1860)
But Chorpenning's legacy remained in the form of the central Nevada route with its station placements and trail alignments pioneered by Chorpenning's mule trains and his later coaches. These were immediately absorbed by Russell, Majors & Waddell's Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company and operated by both its mail coaches and passenger coaches, and that same company's Pony Express, and subsequently by Ben Holladay’s Overland Mail Company through 1862.
Mail East From Salt Lake City
Milestones:
- 1850 to 1854 - Woodson & Brown
- 1854 to 1856 - Magraw (canceled)
- 1857 - Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company (canceled)
- 1858 to 1860 - Hockaday
- 1860 to 1862 - Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (includes Pony Express)
- 1861 - Overland telegraph completed
- 1862 to 1866 - Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company
- 1866 to 1869 - Wells, Fargo & Co.
The mail route to the East connected Salt Lake City with Independence, on the Missouri River south of Kansas City. The route followed the established Mormon and Oregon emigrant trails eastward from Salt Lake City to Fort Bridger, to South Pass, then along the Platte River to Fort Laramie and eastward across Nebraska. The route took the path across the mountains of northeastern Utah and central Wyoming and across the Great Plains.
The Post Office awarded the first monthly mail contract on this leg in 1850 to Samuel H. Woodson and James Brown. After Brown's death in late 1850, Woodson operated the route. To handle the stretch between Fort Laramie and Salt Lake City, Woodson subcontracted the mountain leg to Mormon courier Feramorz Little in 1851. The Woodson contract was a four-year contract, and was in effect from 1850 to 1854.
In 1854, William F. Magraw secured a four-year contract for monthly service. Magraw also suffered from delays and disruptions from winter storms in the mountains, and Indian troubles across the plains. The Post Office canceled his contract in late 1856.
August 18, 1856
The contract with Magraw was canceled, to take effect on August 18, 1856. (H.R. 186, 34th Congress, 1st Session, dated May 23, 1856; "An Act for the Relief of William M. F. Magraw.")
(The "Act" included the payment to Magraw $36,000 in lieu of the present contract price, together with $17,750 for damage to property and property stolen by the Indians.)
In 1857 Brigham Young and Mormon leaders established the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company, known as the Y.X. company, or "Young Express," the company built a robust freighting and mail network. Mormon contractor Hiram Kimball won the route in early 1857 and began building permanent stone stations, feed stores, and livestock posts along the trail.
(Read more about the Y.X. Company)
(Service by the Brigham Young Express and Carrying Company had commenced on February 8, 1857; but was canceled with the service ending on July 1, 1857.)
As of January 6, 1858, the mail arriving in Salt Lake City from San Pedro carried dates of December 5, 1857 from Southern California; November 28, 1857 from San Francisco; and November 1, 1857 from the Eastern states. Mail from the East was coming by way of ocean and Panama, suggesting that the overland route was closed due either no contract carrier, or winter weather, of both. (Deseret News, January 6, 1858)
In 1858, following the Utah War, and the cancellation of the Y.X. company's contract in June 1857, John M. Hockaday and David D. Liggett took over the mail contract, shifting the eastern terminus slightly north from Kansas City to St. Joseph, Missouri. They upgraded service to a weekly schedule with a 22-day transit time using mules and light "spring" wagons. The Hockaday and Liggett contract went into effect on May 1, 1858, and was supposed to last until November 1860.
The freighting giants William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell bought out Hockaday's contract in May 1860. Operating as the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company (C.O.C. & P.P.), they consolidated control over both the eastern and western legs east and west of Salt Lake City.
The new Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company was a consolidation of Russell's Leavenworth and Pikes Peak Express Company, and the former Hockaday contract.
The Leavenworth and Pikes Peak Express Company was founded by William H. Russell and John S. Jones. It was established as a freight and stage line to operate between Leavenworth, Kansas, and Denver, Colorado, capitalizing on the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. The first coach arrived in Denver on March 9, 1859. The enterprise had a short life under that name. On February 13, 1860, it was reorganized and renamed the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company.
The Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company was a company organized by Russell, Majors & Waddell to operate as a contractor for the U. S. Mail. In addition to mail coaches, this included the Pony Express.
March 16, 1861
The Overland Mail Company was authorized by the Postmaster General on March 12, 1861 to change its route from the Southern Route to the Central Route, in accordance with the public law passed by Congress on March 2, 1861. On March 16, 1861, the Overland Mail Company and the
Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company signed a contract to put the latter company as the operating company of the eastern leg of the Central Route, serving Denver and Salt Lake City, with a specific division of costs, revenues and penalities.
(Wikipedia - Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company)
(Read more about the Russell, Majors and Waddell partnership)
Ben Holladay bought out the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company at a public foreclosure sale on March 21, 1862. Holladay had previously loaned substantial sums of money to William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell to keep their struggling firm afloat. When the Russell, Majors, and Waddell company was forced into bankruptcy due to increasing debt and the loss of its U. S. Mail subsidy following the completion of the transcontinental telegraph, Holladay submitted the winning bid of $100,000 to acquire the company's assets, routes, equipment, and livestock. Holladay reorganized the company as the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company, and expanded and modernized the stage line. In November 1866, Holladay sold his company to Wells, Fargo & Company.
(Read more about Ben Holladay at Utah History To Go)
For this eastern mail route, the mail was moved along the established Emigrant Trail along the Platte and Sweetwater rivers across Nebraska and Wyoming, crossing the Continental Divide at South Pass, and continuing past Fort Bridger into Salt Lake City.
During the early Woodson and Magraw years, deep winter snows through South Pass and the Wasatch Mountains frequently made wagons impossible to use. Carriers switched to pack mules and snowshoes, with coaches being used between the difficult portions of the route.
Under Hockaday (1858-1859) and Russell, Majors & Waddell (1859-1862), the Central Overland route transitioned to four-horse Concord stagecoaches and mail wagons supported by relay stations roughly every 10 to 15 miles.
In severe winters when South Pass was completely blocked, eastbound/westbound mail from Salt Lake City was occasionally detoured thousands of miles south via the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, then by the southern Butterfield route to Independence.
"The first U. S. mail to go to Salt Lake City through Parley's Park was in January 1860. From all indications this road must have gone through "Three Mile Canyon." A post office was established in Wanship in 1864." ("Echoes of Yesterday, Summit County" published by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, 1947, page 39)
By mid-1860, C.O.C. & P.P. controlled the entire Central Route from the Missouri River to California. They launched the Pony Express in April 1860 as a rapid horse-relay premium letter service over the same route as the company's mail coaches. In March 1861, Congress authorized a daily overland mail route, which was subsequently awarded to Ben Holladay's stagecoach empire in 1862, fully replacing the earlier, fragmented mail contracts.
(This suggests that Russell, Majors & Waddell's Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company continued to operate as a contractor of the Post Office, moving mail between Leavenworth, Kansas, and Salt Lake City until March 1861 when the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, fully controlled by Wells, Fargo & Co., transferred Butterfield's former Overland Mail Company's coaches, animals and employees from the Southern Route to the Central Route. The transcontinental telegraph was completed in October 1861.)
The Pony Express (1860-1861)
The Pony Express in 1860–1861, operated by Russell, Majors and Waddell, the largest freighting company in the West. The Pony Express ran fast horse relays along the same Overland route as their Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company mail coaches. A trace of the central route took it from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Fort Kearney in western Nebraska, to Fort Laramie in eastern Wyoming, to South Pass, and on to Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. From Fort Bridger, the route was to Salt Lake City across Nevada to Sacramento. Delivery took 10 days, proving the central route could handle rapid mail year-round.
April 7, 1860
"The first Pony Express from the West left Sacramento city, Cal., at 12 p.m., on the night of the 3d inst., and arrived in this city at 11:45 p.m. of the 7th, inside of prospectus time. The roads were heavy and the weather stormy. The last 75 miles was made in 5 hours, 15 minutes, in a heavy rain. The Express from the East left St. Joseph, Missouri, at 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the 3d and arrived in this city at 6:25 p.m. on the evening of the 9th." (Deseret News, April 11, 1860)
(The Pony Express was a premium service for customers who wanted quicker delivery of their correspondence. This was usually businesses and government officials. Most individuals could not afford the fees being charged, which in many cases exceeded a person's income for an entire month.)
May 4, 1860
"The Pony Express. — At half past two p. m. on Friday last [May 4th], the overland express arrived from the East, inside of time, as usual. It travels swiftly whether it carries much news or not. We have been informed that there were only three or four letters for this place by the last trip." (Deseret News, May 9, 1860)
(Wikipedia - Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company -- The article includes information about the Pony Express, its failure in 1861 and the collapse of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company itself in 1862.)
Pony Express Last Days
"There is a screw loose somewhere on this route. The St. Louis agents complain bitterly that not half of the newspapers put in the bags at are received here. Private newspaper packages to correspondents there and the City press are stolen, and it is presumed that it is the same with papers westward bound. There is great need of reform somewhere. Nothing short of new locks on the through hags seems likely to accomplish it." (Daily Alta California [San Francisco], January 1, 1861, citing a letter from St. Louis dated December 15, 1860, received via Pony Express)
September 11, 1861
"The Pony which arrived here from the East on Saturday evening, brought a dispatch dated 'Outer Station,' Sept. 9th. It is reported that the Pony now starts from a point only about one hundred and sixty [160] miles east of this city, to which the dispatches are brought by mail. We are inclined to believe the report, as circumstances certainly favor such conclusion. That being the case, dispatches by Express hereafter will not be much in advance of those brought by mail." (Deseret News, September 11, 1861)
- "Outer Station" refers to the temporary, advancing end-of-wire for the Pacific Telegraph. During the summer and autumn of 1861, Edward Creighton's Pacific Telegraph Company crew was building west from Fort Laramie, while James Gamble's crew was building east from California.
- As the telegraph wire advanced toward Salt Lake City from both directions, the distances covered by Pony Express route were reduced and the overall route shortened. Riders were no longer needed to cover the entire transcontinental trail; they were used solely to bridge the rapidly shrinking gap between the eastern and western telegraph construction heads.
- "Outer Station" at 160 miles east of Salt Lake City in mid-September 1861 places the head of eastern wire construction along the established South Pass route, in the vicinity of the crossing of the Green River.
- The Deseret News item does not indicate the abandonment of the South Pass route in favor of later Bridger Pass being developed by Butterfield for the Overland Mail coaches. Instead, it documents the final weeks of the Pony Express operating along its original South Pass alignment, acting as a high-speed relay between the advancing telegraph line workers until the two wires finally connected at Salt Lake City on October 24, 1861.
- The same changes took place in distance traveled by the Express riders from the west. By September 11, 1861, the Express was only carrying telegraphic messages from Diamond Springs, Nevada Territory, 25 miles west of Ruby, which itself is 228 miles west of Salt Lake City. The Pony Express was only carrying telegraphic messages eastward from that point, with regular mail traveling by mail coach. (Deseret News, September 11, 1861)
October 24, 1861
On this day, the transcontinental telegraph was completed when Edward Creighton's eastern division met James Gamble's western division in Salt Lake City. With electronic communication established, the Pony Express was officially discontinued.
October 26, 1861
The directors of the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company issued the official order for the Pony Express to cease operations. But with numerous riders spread out along the 2,000-mile trail, riders continued finishing their relay legs to clear the route. The final eastbound and westbound mailbags passed through Salt Lake City in the closing days of October 1861, with the very last remaining mail arriving at St. Joseph in the east, and Sacramento in the west as late as mid-November.
The exact date of arrival for the "last" rider into Salt Lake City depends on either the connection of the wire for the telegraph, or when the last Pony Express mailbags were received.
(The reader is reminded that throughout this 1860-1861 period of the Pony Express and the 1861 completion of the transcontinental telegraph, the regular U. S. mail was traveling by regular mail coach, with only minor delays.)
Economic Factors of the Pony Express
Despite its legendary and romantic reputation, the Pony Express was a financial failure. Over its brief 18-month run from April 1860 to October 1861, the service reduced its postage rates four separate times trying to attract more business. Instead, each price reduction only dragged the service further into financial debt.
- April 3, 1860 to Summer 1860; $5.00 per 1/2 ounce; the initial rate charged by founders Russell, Majors & Waddell
- Summer 1860 to April 1861; $2.50 per 1/4 ounce; reduced to encourage higher mail volume
- April 1861 to June 1861; $2.00 per 1/2 ounce; price structure after Wells Fargo took over management
- July 1, 1861 to October 1861; $1.00 per 1/2 ounce; final rate before the transcontinental telegraph rendered the service obsolete.
- This reduction reflected the reduced distances being traveled by the Express riders, moving westward from points in Nebraska and Wyoming as telegraph construction progressed, and moving eastward as construction progressed across Nevada.
Standard U.S. domestic mail at the time cost just 2 to 3 cents per ounce. The initial Pony Express $5.00 fee was roughly 250 times the standard rate, equivalent to approximately $180 to $200 today to mail a single piece of mail. (For comparison, three sheets of today's most common 20-lb 8-1/2x11 paper used in copy machines and printers weigh about 1/2 ounce, so one ounce is equivalent to six sheets of paper.)
Levi Young wrote in his 1923 book, "The Founding of Utah," page 403, "The letters were light, as they were written on tissue-paper and enclosed in a ten-cent Government-stamped envelope. It is known that some of the letters cost $27.50 to transmit them by pony to San Francisco." (For comparison, $27.50 in 1860 is equivalent today to just over $1,100. When FedEx started its overnight express service in 1973, its fee was $16.00, or about $115 today.)
Because of the exorbitant cost, average citizens simply could not afford to use the service. It was utilized predominantly by government officials, newspapers, financial institutions, and wealthy merchants who required fast communication between California and the East Coast.
Despite high postage fees, the enterprise was a massive financial failure. High operational expenses (maintaining over 180 stations, hundreds of personnel, and 400-plus horses) caused the operation to lose up to $13 per letter delivered, ultimately leading to its bankruptcy.
Pony Express Information
"Saddles and Spurs: The Pony Express Saga," by Raymond W. Settle; Mary Lund Settle, published in 1955
Anthony Godfrey, "Pony Express National Historic Trail," 1992 -- An excellent history completed for the National Park Service to serve as a resource for the Pony Express National Historic Trail, established in August 1992. (Google Books) (PDF; 298 pages; 8MB)
Utah and the Pony Express -- Produced by the Daughters of Utah Pioneers in 1960 on the occasion of the centennial of the Pony Express, this digital version is preserved at the HathiTrust.
The Southern Route (1858-1861)
Beginning in 1858, Butterfield Overland Mail Company held a U. S. mail contract and operated along a route between St. Louis and San Francisco by way of what was known as the Southern Route. The Pony Express along the Central Route, and the Butterfield Overland Mail Company along the Southern Route operated concurrently from April 1860 to March 1861, about 11 months.
(Archive.org - "The Overland Stage to California." by Frank Root and William Connelley, 1901)
(Wikipedia - The Butterfield Overland Mail)
From Nick Eggenhofer's "Wagons, Mules and Men," page 155.
Congress appropriated money and authorized the Post Office Department to establish an overland mail service; the Postmaster General was to execute contracts providing for the carrying of the United States mails from the Missouri River to San Francisco. The service, to cost no more than $300,000 on a twice-a-month basis, or $600,000 on a twice-a-week one, was to be performed with four-horse coaches or spring wagons that would carry passengers as well as the mail.
The contract was awarded to John Butterfield, an experienced stage-line man. He had to have the route in operation within a year, which called for some doing. The trail had to be laid out and graded. Stations — 139 of them — had to be built, using native materials at hand, stone, adobe, or logs or lumber. Water had to be provided, either by drilled wells or by hauling. Hundreds of horses and mules had to be acquired, the necessary hay and grain for feeding the stock, and the personnel to drive them and service them and man the stations and wagon yards. It was a vast and complicated undertaking, but on the appointed day — September 16, 1858 — John Butterfield was ready.
The following comes from Hafen's "The Overland Mail, 1849–1869," with citations as noted.
A mail route had been established by act of Congress August 3, 1854, from Neosho, Missouri, to Albuquerque, New Mexico; and from Independence, Missouri, via Albuquerque to Stockton, California, in the following March [1855]. These were petty items in the general postal route bills, and as such, went by unnoticed. But in December, 1857, Postmaster-General Brown, upon the 'solicitation of citizens interested in that section of the country' advertised for bids upon the routes. (Postmaster-General’s Report, 1858, 722, 723.)
In the following May [1855] a contract was entered into with Jacob Hall to carry the mail monthly from Kansas City, Missouri, via Santa Fe to Stockton, California, for $79,999. The service was to be performed in a six-mule wagon and sixty days were allowed for the through trip. (U. S. House. Executive Documents, 35th Congress, Second session, No. 109, Vol. XI [11], 484.)
Service on this line commenced October 1, 1858. (Postmaster-General’s Report, 1859, 1412; Serial no. 1025.)
The Postmaster-General's report for 1857 included an extensive narrative and reasoning for the change in route due to winter weather conditions along the Northern Route. An act of Congress dated March 3, 1857 gave the Postmaster General authority to advertise the new Southern route, specifically stating that the contractor selected "for the conveyance of the entire letter mail from such point on the Mississippi river as the contractors may select to San Francisco, in the State of California, for six years," at a cost not exceeding $300,000 per year semi-monthly service, $450,000 per year for weekly service, or $600,000 per year for semi-weekly service. Also that "the contract shall require the service to be performed with good four-horse coaches or spring wagons, suitable for the conveyance of passengers as well as the safety and security of the mails." Also that "said service shall be performed within twenty-five days for each trip." Bids were to be submitted by June 1, 1857.
The Butterfield bid was among the nine bids submitted (including two others by the Butterfield group, with slight variations of the route), and read as follows: "John Butterfield, William B. Dinsmore, William G. Fargo, James V. P. Gardner, Marcus L. Kinyon, Hamilton Spencer, and Alexander Holland: From St. Louis, by Springfield, and from Memphis, by Little Rock, connecting at a common point at or eastward of Albuquerque; thence west, to and along the military road to Colorado river; thence up the valley of the Mohahoc [Mojave] river, to and through the Tejon [Tehachapi] passes of the Sierra Nevada; and thence along the best route to San Francisco."
On July 2, 1857, "after full and mature consideration," the Postmaster and his two assistants selected and accepted the following bid: "Route 12,578. From St. Louis, Missouri, and from Memphis, Tennessee, converging at Little Rock, Arkansas; thence, via Preston, Texas, or as nearly so as may be found advisable, to the best point of crossing the Rio Grande, above El Paso, and not far from Fort Fillmore; thence, along the new road being opened and constructed under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, to Fort Yuma, California; thence, through the best passes, and along the best valleys for safe and expeditious staging, to San Francisco."
On September 11, 1857, the connecting point was changed from Little Rock, to Preston, Texas, on the Texas-Oklahoma border, and on September 16, 1857, the contract was signed and finalized. The contract was to be in effect for a period of six years, until September 15, 1864.
The Butterfield Overland Mail (Southern Route) operated from September 15, 1858, to March 1, 1861, running from St. Louis and Memphis through Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Los Angeles to San Francisco.
The Postmaster-General's report for 1859 showed that the contract to transport the mail from St. Louis and Memphis, via El Paso, to San Francisco cost the department $600,000 per year, but only yielded $27,230 in revenue, with the $600,000 figure being mandated by the Congress itself, and the submitted bids matching. This resulted in a loss of $570,770, the cost "for carrying a few sacks of letters from the valley of the Mississippi to San Francisco, through a waste and uninhabited country," which was reported as equal to the total cost of furnishing postal service to three states: Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina. Such Congressional mandates opened the process to "an almost illimitable field for mercenary intrigue and spoliation."
(Read the full 1859 Postmaster-General's report at HathiTrust.org)
Despite the political controversy and the extra 800 miles, when John Butterfield organized his Overland Mail Company, he favored the Southern Route because it avoided the heavy winter snows of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, allowing his stages to maintain a year-round, 25-day delivery schedule, as stipulated in the original Overland Mail Act of 1857.
Wells, Fargo & Co., had loaned John Butterfield the funds for starting the Southern Route in 1858. By March 1860 Butterfield was even further in debt, at which time Wells Fargo & Co. took direct control over operations and forced Butterfield out as president.
April 11, 1860
"In the Senate to-day" "After a lengthy discussion on a motion by Mr. Gwin to take up the Overland Mail route bill - during which Messrs. Hale and Benjamin spoke of the Butterfield route as an ox-bow route, and denounced it as a great Government mistake and an encumbrance to the adoption of a true overland mail system." (Washington D.C. Evening Star, April 11, 1860)
The Pony Express operated along the Central Route from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, from St. Joseph, Missouri, through Salt Lake City to Sacramento.
The overlap ended in March 1861 when Congress ordered the Butterfield route moved north to the Central Route due to the outbreak of the Civil War and Texas seceding from the Union.
When the transcontinental telegraph was completed in October 1861, the Pony Express was immediately rendered obsolete.
After The Pony Express (1861-1869)
Southern Route Closed (1861)
The onset of the Civil War in early 1861 forced the Federal government to abandon the Butterfield's Southern route after Confederate separatists destroyed several Butterfield stage stations and stole the livestock. This was due to Texas seceding from the Union in February 1861. All transcontinental U. S. Mail was legally moved to the Central Route.
Before the Civil War, the Butterfield's Overland Mail Company operated the famous 2,800-mile Southern Route which carried mail from St. Louis and Memphis through Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to San Francisco, California.
- February 1, 1861: Texas voted to secede from the Union. Almost immediately Texas Confederates and local bandits began raiding stations, seizing livestock, and destroying equipment.
- March 2, 1861: Recognizing that a hostile Confederacy would block federal mail from passing to the Pacific coast, the U.S. Congress officially passed an act discontinuing the Southern route. They ordered the mail route to be permanently diverted away from Texas to a central path through St. Joseph, Missouri, and Salt Lake City.
- March 21, 1861: The very last mail coach left the Texas section, effectively closing federal mail transit through the state for the duration of the war.
Following the collapse of the Union's Southern route, the Confederacy officially took total control of all Texas post offices and internal mail delivery by May 1861. This completely severed standard postal communication between the Union states and California by way of Texas and the Southern Route.
Central Route Opened (1861)
March 30, 1861
"W. H. Russell, the founder of the pony express, has concluded a contract with the overland mail company, transferred by the last Congress to the central route, to run the mail and pony from the Missouri River connecting with the overland company at Salt Lake City." (Salt Lake City Mountaineer, March 30, 1861)
June 1, 1861
"On the evening of the 28th, Mr. Buckley, the Superintendent elect of the western portion of the Overland Mail Route, arrived in this city, accompanied by Major Egan, Mr. B. Roberts, Mr. Cluggage, Mr. P. Lynch, and others. Some four or five hundred mules and horses were already being forwarded to the stations on the route, and would be where they were required in a few days. Wells, Fargo & Co. will probably have the control of, at least, the Western portion of the line. They are a strong firm, and we may hope for prompt mails." (Salt Lake City Mountaineer, June 1, 1861)
After the Pony Express along the Central Route was closed in October 1861, stages took over the Central Route for the U. S. Mail .
(The transcontinental telegraph was completed in October 1861. Brigham Young took advantage of being able to send the first telegram from Salt Lake City to the East on October 18, 1861, by addressing it to President Abraham Lincoln and assuring him that the people of Utah Territory were loyal to the United States.)
(The Pony Express, operated by Russell, Majors & Waddell's Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company, carried the part of the U. S. Mail that senders paid a premium for, to receive the fastest service possible. The regular U. S. Mail traveled to California by the Southern Route, in Butterfield's stages, maintaining the 25-day schedule as mandated by Congress in 1857. With the Butterfield mail service ending in March 1861 due to the start of the Civil War, the regular U. S. Mail was transferred to the Central Route, using mail coaches both east and west of Salt Lake City. The completion of the transcontinental telegraph in October 1861 put an end to the premium mail services provided by the Pony Express. The mail coaches continued carrying letters, magazines, books and newspapers, known as "other mail matter.")
The transfer from the Southern Route to the Central Route was enacted by the 36th Congress on March 2, 1861, via the annual Post Office Appropriation Act for the Fiscal Year of July 1, 1861 to June 30, 1862 (12 Stat. 204, 206).
With Secession underway and the impending outbreak of the Civil War, Congress passed the act to discontinue the Southern Route running through Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas and modify the existing contract with John Butterfield's Overland Mail Company.
The Congressional act directed the Postmaster General to modify the contract with John Butterfield's Overland Mail Company, transferring service away from the Southern Route to the Central Overland Route from St. Joseph, Missouri, via Salt Lake City, to Placerville, California. The contract was adjusted to provide daily mail delivery by coach along the Central Route, along with a semi-weekly letter express mail service (the Pony Express) until the transcontinental telegraph was completed. The annual subsidy was increased to $1,000,000.
As noted above, the final runs on the southern route ended on March 21, 1861. Equipment and stock were relocated northward over the spring of 1861, and official service on the Central Overland Route under the modified contract commenced on July 1, 1861.
The Overland Mail Company (the official corporate name of the "Butterfield" line) officially retained the overall $1 million annual contract from the Post Office Department. However, because they had no existing infrastructure, stations, or stock along the Central Route, they divided the operations into two divisions and subcontracted the actual operations.
The Eastern Division (St. Joseph to Salt Lake City) was subcontracted to the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company (COC&PP), an existing company founded in 1860 by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell (who also operated the Pony Express). They received $475,000 of the mail subsidy to cover this segment.
The Western Division (Salt Lake City to Placerville) was operated directly by Butterfield's Overland Mail Company, but by then controlled by Wells, Fargo & Co. interests.
February 30, 1861
From the Deseret News, February 30, 1861.
The weekly stage arrived from St. Joseph yesterday forenoon, just within mail schedule time, but brought no mail matter, and, what is still worse, from all we could learn there was nothing heard of the anticipated mail on the road.
The stage driver informs us that the roads east, from the foot of the Big Mountain to the South Pass are excellent for this season of the year. Unless the roads further east have been in a different condition, some other cause than snow has retarded the mail. The Pony riders, as far east as heard from, had seen nothing of the letter or the paper mail.
There is a particular interest felt at the present time in the future continuance and the regularity of our eastern mail, from the peculiar position of one of the principal contractors, whose name has very recently figured prominently in eastern telegraphic dispatches. We have thought of the subject and have duly considered it peculiarities and the rumors afoot, but see nothing tangible on which to ground any apprehension of the mail's discontinuance. It is so clearly in the interest of the contractors to carry out the mail contract faithfully, that it will unquestionably be attended to. We shall therefore look for it semi-monthly, and when it fails from sheer indifference of obligation to schedule time, we will have to do as we have been unfortunately called upon to do too often, that is — pitch in.
The Postmaster here having received no contrary instructions, continues to dispatch the mail eastward every Friday, as before.
With the completion of the telegraph the Pony Express stopped operating and the arrangement of the mail coach service changed almost immediately due to corporate failure. In 1862 the Russell, Majors and Waddell company, the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express Company operating the Eastern Division, went deeply into debt. Ben Holladay, the so-called stagecoach tycoon foreclosed on his massive loans to the Russell, Majors and Waddell company in March 1862, buying the Eastern Division at foreclosure. He reorganized it as the Overland Stage Line.
(Although the overland telegraph was completed in October 1861, the telegraph, like the Pony Express, it was a premium high-cost way to send a letter. Newspapers were the major source for information, and could not be sent by telegraph, except for headlines. The regular U.S. mail continued moving by mail coach.)
(Throughout May and June 1862, there were complaints in the Salt Lake City newspapers that the mail was not moving either east or west, with most concern being given to mail service between Salt Lake City and California. There were suspicions that the delays were not due to Indian troubles, as was being widely reported in the East and in California, but due to profiteering white men stealing government supplies at the various stations and selling them on a black market, then demanding that the Army be sent from the East and from California to "protect the mails" and re-stock the stations. There were reports of wagon loads of supplies showing up at the mining camps, labeled as being government-owned materials. Regardless of who was preying on the stations, whether Indians or bandits, the mail coaches were being held back for the safety of employees and passengers. There was one report that on June 25th, a large volume of mail arrived at Salt Lake City from the East - mail that had been missing for months.)
July 23, 1862
"Nothing has been heard from any westward bound coach on the new Overland route, and when the next mail from the east may be expected to arrive here, no one knoweth. It will be fortunate indeed if the concern shall chance to get in full operation again before the setting in of winter. There has, we believe, been one mail brought through from the Missouri river, within schedule time, since the commencement of the year, and some half a dozen arrivals, more or less, since the middle of April." "The first mail sent east from this city, since the Laramie route was abandoned, left on Monday [July 21] morning, and we are informed by Postmaster Stenhouse that it will leave daily hereafter. What has become of that large lot of mail sacks, reported to have been seen by emigrants on the banks of Green river, and at other places this side the Pass, since the discontinuance of the mail on that route?" (Deseret News, July 23, 1862)
("The Laramie route" mentioned above was the former Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company, organized by Russell, Majors & Waddell. The COC&PPE service operated as a mail coach service in parallel with the same company's Pony Express service that ended in October 1861.)
(The route used by "C. O. C. and P. P. Express Company" westward was from Leavenworth or St. Joseph, then northwest to meet the Platte River and the Emigrant Trail to South Pass in central Wyoming and continuing on the Emigrant Trail to Fort Bridger.)
September 3, 1862
A summary of an editorial in the Deseret News, September 3, 1862.
The newspaper editors are well aware that their frequent criticisms of the eastern mail route have caused some friction with those operating the line, but we view their annoyance as a refusal to see the constructive intention behind our words. Now that the Daily Overland Mail is performing beyond expectations, we feel equally bound to offer praise, particularly as self-interested parties in the East attempt to misrepresent the route's true conditions in an effort to destroy it. While they previously noted that the initial mail stoppages and panic during spring Indian troubles were unwarranted, those failures stemmed entirely from the bankrupted Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express company, which left the entire line from St. Joseph to Salt Lake completely unprepared for the severe winter. Under the management of Mr. Ben Holladay, however, the operation has been revitalized, and our past frustrations lay solely with those who expected us to overlook blatant organizational weakness.
Since transitioning to the new route on the Cherokee trail, performance has dramatically improved, with the latest stage arriving from St. Joseph in just over ten days and beating schedule times continuously. The stage that arrived last evening [September 2] brought mail dated up to August 23rd, making it a little over ten days between that city and this. When the stations on the route are properly established and the new road itself improved by travel, the schedule will continue to improve.
Despite this remarkable progress and full operational stability, the Eastern special interests, not wanting the Mormons to benefit in any way, were actively attempting to sabotage the Overland Mail by falsely claiming travelers face Indian threats, leading the Post Office Department to needlessly cease overland travel and reroute Pacific mail by ocean and the Isthmus of Panama. There were those in San Francisco who were contesting these fabrications and to restore public confidence. Though we hold no personal stake in the business, we affirm that the service has never been better managed and that sufficient military presence exists to ensure complete safety along the route.
(The route of the Cherokee Trail used by the Overland Mail mentioned above, and used by the mail east of Salt Lake City, was a continuation of the route across Kansas to La Junta, Colorado, then north to Denver and Fort Collins, then to Laramie and westward to Fort Bridger. East of La Junta, the Overland Mail used the Santa Fe Trail across Kansas. This became known as the Eastern Division and no longer used the Emigrant or Mormon trails across Nebraska. This change was to put Denver, the most recent boom town, on the route of the overland mail.)
(The Western Division was that portion from Salt Lake City to Sacramento. On May 11, 1860, the Postmaster General cancelled the existing mail contract with George Chorpenning and offered it to Russell & Jones' Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Co. The contract paid enough to cover the cost of running the Pony Express for mail between Salt Lake City and Sacramento. The Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company continued to operate both the mail coach service west of Salt Lake City until 1862.)
On March 21, 1862, Ben Holladay bought out Russell, Majors, and Waddell's Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express Company at a public foreclosure sale. Holladay had previously loaned substantial sums of money to William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell to keep their struggling company afloat. When the Russell, Majors, and Waddell company was forced into bankruptcy due to increasing debt and the loss of its U. S. Mail subsidy following the completion of the transcontinental telegraph, Holladay submitted the winning bid of $100,000 to acquire the company's assets, routes, equipment, and livestock. Holladay reorganized the company as the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company, and expanded and modernized the stage line.
(Read the book "Ben Holladay, Stagecoach King" at the HathiTrust. Published in 1940; 516 pages)
July 1, 1864
As mandated in the Act of 1861, the overland mail contract expired on July 1, 1864. A new mail contract was awarded to Ben Holladay and his Overland Stage Line continued to provide the service. In November 1866, Holladay sold his company to Wells, Fargo & Company.
Wells, Fargo & Co. had already taken control of the stage lines in California and Nevada, and in November 1866 consolidated Holladay's Overland Mail Company with the Pioneer Stage Line in California, into a single company, controlling the Central Overland Route until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.
So while Butterfield's Overland Mail Company held the mail contract, and moved its operation north from the Southern Route to the Central Route, the operations on the ground were taken over by the C.O.C.&P.P., which itself was swept up by Ben Holladay and eventually consolidated under Wells, Fargo & Co. control, ownership and operation.
- Holladay Overland Mail & Express Co. (1862–1866) (Missouri River to Salt Lake City) — Shifted the route from South Pass down through northern Colorado by way of Julesburg to Denver, then into and across southern Wyoming via the Overland Trail.
- Wells, Fargo & Company (1866–1869) (Missouri River to Salt Lake City) — Bought Ben Holladay's interest in the stage line and mail contract.
- Wells, Fargo & Company (1862–1869) (Salt Lake City to California) — Controlled the western section using stagecoaches following the Central Overland Route through central Nevada to Austin and Carson City and over the Sierra Nevada mountains.
"But the handwriting was on the wall, with the railroad building slowly westward as well as eastward from the Coast. Wells Fargo was pressing Holladay, and with an uneasy eye on the progress of the advancing steel rails "Old Ben" sold out. Wells Fargo paid him $1,500,000 in cash, $300,000 in company stock, and gave him a seat on the board of directors. In May 1869 laying of track for the transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit and the Overland stage to California was out of business, after a little more than a decade of service." (Nick Eggenhofer, "Wagons, Mules and Men," page 160)
The disruption of Butterfield's Overland Mail along the Southern Route during the Civil War presented a major business opportunity. In March 1862, Ben Holladay secured control of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company, acquiring 1,200 miles of stage lines. After winning the U.S. Post Office contract for mail service to Salt Lake City, Utah, he established the Overland Stage Route along the Overland Trail.
Holladay aggressively expanded and upgraded the Overland Trail by building new stations, deploying a fleet of newly-built Concord stages, and streamlining numerous routes. After changing the company name to the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company, and by 1866 his network stretched from Atchison, Kansas, to Denver, Colorado, north into Wyoming and on westward to Salt Lake City. At its peak, Holladay was the sole owner of roughly 20,000 vehicles, employed over 15,000 workers, and brought in up to $60,000 a month in passenger revenue. A one-way fare from Atchison to Salt Lake City cost $350. Over the five year period he held the mail contract, the Post Office paid him nearly $2 million.
Recognizing that the transcontinental railroad would soon make stagecoaches obsolete, Holladay timed his exit. On November 1, 1866, he sold his entire operation—including routes, equipment, and contracts—to Wells, Fargo & Co. for $1.5 million in cash and $300,000 in Wells Fargo stock.
Under Wells Fargo ownership the Overland stagecoach mail service continued for another two and a half years. The Overland mail and passenger stage era came to an end when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific tracks met at Promontory Summit, Utah, in May 1869. Overland letter mail shifted entirely from stagecoaches to rail cars, ending the era of the overland mail coach routes, although numerous and many mail and passenger coach branchlines remained in operation for many, many years.
Maps
National Park Service Interactive Historic Trails Map -- Map shows the routes of all the trails mentioned on this page (except Parley Pratt's Golden Pass Route from Echo to Salt Lake City).
Sources
(In addition to contemporary newspapers, most of which are available online, the following were useful sources.)
(Archive.org - "The Overland Stage to California." by Frank Root and William Connelley, 1901)
(Archive.org - "Wagons, Mules and Men," by Nick Eggenhofer, 1961) (Well researched, well written and highly entertaining. Recommended for anyone with an interest in wagons or any vehicle pulled by mules, horses, or oxen. It covers the subjects very well.)
Richard E. Fike and John W. Headley, The Pony Express Stations of Utah in Historical Perspective, Bureau of Land Management, 1979
Works Progress Administration, Writers Program, Utah, a guide to the state, 1941
More Information
Overland Mail to California in the 1850s -- Mirrored from the U. S. Postal Service's own history of moving mail in the 1850s; includes maps.
Anthony Godfrey, "Pony Express National Historic Trail," 1992 at Google Books (PDF; 298 pages; 8MB)
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