U. S. Mail In Utah, 1850 to 1869

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U. S. Mail In Utah, 1850 to 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.

The U.S. Post Office initially attempted mail delivery across the central route via early, under-funded mail contracts. Beginning in 1850, 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 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 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.

"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, 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. In 1855-1859, the surveys of Egan & Simpson (Howard Egan and Army Captain James H. Simpson) 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.

Before The Pony Express (1850-1860)

Mail West From Salt Lake City

The Chorpenning and Woodward mail route (officially designated as U.S. Mail Route 5066) 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. In many instances along the route, the men often used wooden mauls to compact the snow enough to allow the mules to travel.

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.

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, 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.

Government payment on the 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:

After the Army surveyed a new route across central Nevada

In 1858, Chorpenning 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 and Simpson.

After the Pony Express started in April 1860, and due to regular delays and pressure from local, regional and national politicians, in May 1860 the Post Office canceled Chorpenning's contract for mail between Salt Lake City and Sacramento. 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 and Waddell for the Pony Express, and subsequently by the Central Overland California & Pike's Peak Express and Ben Holladay’s Overland Mail Company through 1862.

Mail East From Salt Lake City

The mail route to the East connected Salt Lake City with Independence, on the Missouri River, south of Kansas City. The route took it 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 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.

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. However, as tensions mounted between Utah Territory and the federal government, the U.S. government canceled the contract during the Utah War of 1857–1858 and used the new well-built stone stations for military logistics.

In 1858, following the Utah War, John M. Hockaday and David D. Liggett took over the mail contract, shifting the eastern terminus slightly north to St. Joseph, Missouri. They upgraded service to a weekly schedule with a 22-day transit time using mules and light "spring" wagons.

The freighting giants William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell bought out Hockaday's contract in May 1859. 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.

(Read the Wikipedia article about 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. In 1862, however, both companies were deep in debt and were purchased by Ben Holladay for a minimal sum in 1862.

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.

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 Butterfield's Butterfield Overland Mail Company transferred its coaches, animals and employees from the Southern Route, with the transcontinental telegraph being 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.

(Read the Wikipedia article about the Pony Express)

(Read the Wikipedia article about 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.)

Echo To Salt Lake City (Pony Express)

Although research has not yet found the specific route taken by the Pony Express riders between Echo and Salt Lake City, there are two possibilities, with some minor variation.

First is the original 1847 Pioneer trail from Echo to "Heneferville" then by way of East Canyon to Big Mountain Pass, then Little Mountain Pass, then Emigration Canyon.

A slight variation would be from Big Mountain Pass to Mountain Dale (Dell) by way of Little Dell canyon, then by way of Parley Pratt's Golden Pass toll road through lower Big Kanyon Creek Canyon (Parley's Canyon). Pratt's toll road opened in July 1850 and was a recognized Territorial road by 1855.

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.)

Economic Factors of the Pony Express

Although romantic and full of folklore to the extreme, the Pony Express was a financial failure. During its brief operating run from April 3, 1860, to October 26, 1861, postage rates for the Pony Express went through four distinct rate structures in an effort to attract more business, with each rate reduction driving the service deeper into 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

Standard U.S. domestic mail at the time cost just $0.02 to $0.03. The initial $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.)

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

Anthony Godfrey, "Pony Express National Historic Trail," 1992 at 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.

(Read the Wikipedia article about the Pony Express)

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.

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 Butterfield Overland Mail (Southern Route) operated from September 15, 1858, to March 1, 1861, running from St. Louis and Memphis through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Los Angeles to San Francisco.

The Pony Express (Central Route) operated 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, both the Pony Express and reliance on long-distance overland stage mail were immediately rendered obsolete.

Ox-Bow Route

The nick name of the "Ox-Bow Route" was applied to the Butterfield company's operation, although the company itself and its employees, and the stations along the route never used the informal name. The name was a negative comment used by the newspapers of the time, and by proponents of the Central Route and political representatives of territories along the Central Route

The name came from its appearance on a map of that era, looking like an oxbow, which is the U-shaped wooden collar fitted around an ox's neck, or a drastic U-shaped curve in a river. A modern map shows that the route wasn't nearly the dramatic U-shape called out by its critics.

Instead of taking the direct line across the middle of the country of the promoted Central Route, the Southern Route formed a massive, 2,800-mile long arc dipping deep into Texas. Its starting point was actually at two points on the Mississippi River, St. Louis and Memphis. The route then angled southwest through Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, and New Mexico and Arizona territories, reaching Southern California at Los Angeles, where it swung sharply north to finish at San Francisco. Thus forming the U-shape and the basis of critics' name for the route.

As mentioned, the designation originated during the 1850s from political opponents, Northern lawmakers, and newspapers critics who favored a central transcontinental mail path. Some felt that when Congress authorized the Overland Mail Act of 1857, Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown, a staunch native of Tennessee, selected the southern path despite heavy lobbying for a central route through Utah and Nevada. Critics argued that Brown deliberately bypassed the shorter Central Route (roughly 2,000 miles) in favor of an unnecessarily long, circuitous 2,800-mile path to benefit Southern commercial and political interests located along the Mississippi River ahead of the impending Civil War. Northern newspapers and politicians dubbed it the "Oxbow Route" to mock its long, sprawling detour to the south.

Another factor of the selection of the Southern Route was to avoid benefiting the Mormons in Utah. This was in the same 1857-1858 period that U. S. President James Buchanan sent the U.S. Army to the Utah Territory in what became known as the "Utah War." The Army arrived in Salt Lake City in June 1858, just four months before Butterfield was awarded the contract.

Despite the political controversy and the extra 800 miles, when John Butterfield organized his Butterfield Overland Mail, he favored the path 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.

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 Southern Butterfield 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 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.

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 via the Texas land corridor.

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)

April 13, 1861
"We are all truly pleased to learn that the overland mail is finally to be run over the Central Route. All California rejoices! We join in the Harrah! for the Central Route." "Messrs. Wade and Creighton have left by steamer for the Eastern States, after having perfected arrangements on this side for the early completion of the line to Salt Lake. The arrangements are such that all California Telegraph Companies are merged in one, and to build to Salt Lake, Eastern companies to meet them at that point." (Salt Lake City Mountaineer, April 13, 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 and Waddell, 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).

An Act Of Congress

(Read the Act as provided by the Library of Congress; it may take several minutes to load the page)

Summary of the text from the March 2, 1861, Act:

Section 9 - Discontinuation of existing route: The Postmaster General must discontinue mail service on Route No. 12578 (from St. Louis and Memphis to San Francisco) and modify the contract, effective by July 1, 1861. New mail service requirements on the central route:

  • Carry the full letter mail six times per week.
  • Delivery time: 20 days for 8 months of the year, and 23 days for the remaining 4 months.
  • Route: from a point on the Missouri River (connected to the East) to Placerville, California.
  • Deliver full mails tri-weekly to Denver City and Great Salt Lake City.
  • Other mail matter: Carry all other mail within 35 days, with the option to send it semi-monthly from New York to San Francisco by sea in 25 days; public documents in 35 days.
  • Pony Express requirement: Run a semi-weekly pony express until the overland telegraph is completed.
    • Schedule: 10 days for 8 months, 12 days for 4 months.
    • Carry 5 pounds of government mail free; charge the public up to $1 per half-ounce for letters.
  • Payment: Contractors receive $1 million per year.
  • Deadline and expiration: Contract modification must be done by March 25, 1861; contract expires July 1, 1864.

Section 10 – Compensation for transition

  • Contractors get their current mail pay during the time needed to move their stock to the central route (without performing service).
  • They also receive two months' pay on the existing contract as liquidated damages for making the change.

Approved March 2, 1861.

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 heavily backed and controlled by Wells, Fargo & Co. interests.

The Placerville to Sacramento segment was subcontracted to the Pioneer Stage Line.

Echo To Salt Lake City (Mail Coaches)

Research has not yet found the specific route taken by the Overland Mail coaches between Echo and Salt Lake City.

As late as May 1859, the mail coaches were using the road over Big Mountain Pass. (Deseret News, May 11, 1859)

The Mountain Dell Station was located below Big Mountain. The marker there reads, "In 1857, Ephraim Hanks established a ranch and way station for travelers near the evergreens in the canyon below. It served as an Overland Stage stop and a Pony Express station."

In January 1862, the mail coaches were using Ephraim Hanks' station at Mountain Dell, but it is not yet known if the coaches continued eastward over Parleys Summit, or if they turned north up Little Dell canyon and continued over Big Mountain Pass. (Deseret News, January 22, 1862)

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.


Telegraph Line Completed

October 18, 1861 - The Pacific Telegraph Company completed the telegraph between St. Joseph, Nebraska, and Salt Lake City. On the same day Brigham Young sent the first message to J. H. Wade, who was the president of that company at the time, assuring him that Utah was for the Union. On the same day the acting governor of Utah sent a message to President Abraham Lincoln, congratulating the President on the completion of the line to Salt Lake City, and the President replied, "The completion of the telegraph to Salt Lake City is auspicious of the stability and Union of the Republic. The government reciprocates your congratulations."

October 24, 1861 - The Overland Telegraph Company completed the telegraph line between Sacramento and Salt Lake City. The two lines met at Salt Lake City, creating the first transcontinental telegraph line.

(Read more about the first telegraph in Utah.)

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 COC&PP 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.

(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, 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 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" was likely the former Russell, Majors & Waddell service operated as a mail coach in parallel with the Pony Express 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.)

(The route of the Cherokee Trail used by the Overland Mail mentioned in the editorial below, was from La Junta, Colorado, 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.)

September 3, 1862
From an editorial in the Deseret News, September 3, 1862.

We have so frequently alluded to the difficulties on the eastern mail route, that we recur to the subject at the present time with some degree of diffidence. We are well aware that persons connected with the mail line and on the road have "felt sore" at our strictures [criticism] on their operations, and not unlikely in their sickness have said hard things about us; but these are small affairs. Such persons are terribly too dull and heavy to perceive the good others intend them.

Having whispered a few unpleasant facts, we feel it our duty, now that the Overland Mail institution is accomplishing more than the Department or the public have any right to expect, we shall not be less backward in our need of praise, and the more especially do we feel the force of the obligation on learning by telegraph from the east, that interested parties are striving their utmost to misrepresent the actual condition of affairs on the route between this and the Missouri river, with the view, evidently, of breaking up the Daily Overland Mail to the Pacific.

At the first outbreak of Indian troubles in March or April last, we freely stated our opinion — we thought there was no occasion for the excitement among the employees and the stoppage of the mails, and we have never since learned anything to change our opinion. Had Mr. Ben. Holladay, the present proprietor, had the management of the eastern division from the commencement of the daily mail, there would have been no interruption of mails. The C. O. C. and P. P. Express Company was a used-up institution, and everything on the route from St. Joseph to Salt Lake bore evidence of its bankruptcy. A severe winter had not been provided for, and it came and smashed up everything. Mr. Holladay was not to blame; we never blamed him; we were only disgusted with the stupidity of other folks who wanted everybody to see vigor where there was languor, to see strength where there was weakness, and to see activity where there was no activity.

Since the opening of the new route on the Cherokee trail, the mails have arrived from St. Joseph considerably within schedule time, with a visible decrease of time every week. The stage that arrived last evening brought St. Joseph dates up to the 2d of August, 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, we expect to see the time still further abridged: as it is, however, we are satisfied, and shall be much pleased to never find ourselves worse served than at the present time.

While then everything is favorable to expectation traveling, and the ensemble of the organization is in full swing with new life, and giving every promise of stability, a clique in the east are evidently bent on moving everything to its destruction. The last of their moves is representing the mails and travelers in danger from Indians, while positively not a person on the new route has reported a single word of apprehension. Within the last few days the Post Office Department has again ordered the Pacific through mails to be sent to New York by the Isthmus, and vice versa. Of course, the inference is danger, and travel Overland ceases. We understand that Mr. Cook, presently in San Francisco, has faced this opposition both by press and telegraph, and may possibly succeed in disabusing the public mind and restoring confidence. We have no personal interest in it either way; but on matters of fact, we will speak out, and on this subject our testimony is that we know of no cause for apprehension of difficulties on the eastern mail line. There are troops enough to keep off the Indians, and the mail service was never better performed.

(On the morning of October 20, 1862, the Third California Volunteers arrived in Salt Lake City, under the command of Colonel P. E. Connor. They were stationed in Salt Lake City to monitor the activity of the Mormons, and to "protect" the Overland Mail. They also set about rounding up and punishing as many Indians as could be justified.)

(Read more about P. E. Connor and the California Volunteers)

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 entire vast stagecoach empire to Wells, Fargo & Company.

Wells Fargo 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 the Overland Mail Company held the mail contract, and moved its operation north, the operations on the ground were initially split with the C.O.C.&P.P. before being swept up by Ben Holladay and eventually consolidated under Wells Fargo.

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 (1861–1869) (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.

The completion of the transcontinental telegraph line in October 1861, which paralleled the Central Overland Route through Salt Lake City, instantly rendered the Pony Express obsolete.

"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)

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 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, the following were useful sources.)

Frank A. Root and William Elsey Connelly, The Overland Stage to California, 1901

Roscoe P. Conkling and Margaret B. Conkling, The Butterfield Overland Mail 1857-1869, Volume 2, 1947

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

Nick Eggenhofer's book, "Wagons, Mules and Men," published in 1961, is well researched, well written and highly entertaining. It is recommended for anyone with an interest in wagons or any vehicle pulled by mules, horses, or oxen. It covers the subjects very well.

More Information

Overland Mail to California in the 1850s -- The U. S. Postal Service's own history of moving mail in the 1850s.

Anthony Godfrey, "Pony Express National Historic Trail," 1992 at Google Books (PDF; 298 pages; 8MB)

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