USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 31
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Naturally the people of the state were anxious to bring such a condition to an end, and very early began the agitation for a regular overland mail service to the east. Prior to 1857, however, only a few abortive attempts were actually made either by Congress or private individuals to inaugurate such a service; and from these efforts the people of the state derived little immediate benefit.
The most ambitious of these early undertakings was that of Absalom Woodward and George Chorpenning. With these men the United States government contracted, April 25th, 1851, for a monthly mail service each way be- tween Salt Lake City and Sacramento. The first route was "along the regular emigrant road through Placerville, cross- ing the Sierras at Carson's Canon, then following along Carson and Humboldt Rivers, and around the northern end of the lake to Salt Lake City." Thirty days was allowed for the 900 mile trip; and though this could be made easily enough in summer, the winter often found the route impassable; so that Chorpenning was obliged to abandon it during several months of each year and forward the mails to San Pedro by sea and thence transport them overland to Salt Lake by the Mormon Trial.
Indian attacks on the northern route were also frequent. So, while the government subsidy, which amounted to only $14,000 a year, was afterwards increased, and a shorter road opened between Placerville and Salt Lake through
2 In 1855 one of the southern newspapers stated that San Luis Obispo had had only 8 mails in 18 months.
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northern Nevada, Chorpenning's project never gave very satisfactory service, nor repaid the contractors by several hundred thousand dollars for the expense and labor in- volved.
One of the reasons for the slow development of the over- land mail service was the very powerful and well-organized opposition in Washington of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany to a rival carrier. The intense sectional jealousy between Northern and Southern California, and between western and southern states, over the location of the route was another retarding influence. Almost every immigrant trail running into the state had its backers, but eventually the contest narrowed down to three main routes.
The first of these, much frequented by early immigrants, ran from Independence, Missouri, and later from St. Joseph, to Salt Lake, by way of Laramie, Fort Bridger, and the South Pass. Over the eastern portion of this route, from Missouri to Salt Lake, a monthly mail service was almost continuously maintained by various contractors after 1850. This supplied both the Mormon settlements in Utah and the United States military forces along the frontier. But from Salt Lake to California, this northern route was fre- quently impassable during the winter months, as Chorpen- ning found by hard experiment.
The second proposed route left Springfield, Missouri, and ran in a southwesterly course to the Canadian River. Fol- lowing the course of this stream, it passed through Albuquer- que, and held almost directly west until it reached the Colorado. From the Colorado it continued to the Mojave, and then turned northward to the Tejon Pass. From the Tejon, one branch led to Los Angeles; and another continued up the San Joaquin Valley to San José and San Francisco. This route, commonly known as the 35th parallel route, or Beale's route, was apparently the most favored of the three by mail contractors.
The southern route, which eventually obtained the government subsidy, will be described in detail later. It is sufficient here to point out that while considerably longer
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THE OVERLAND MAIL AND PONY EXPRESS
than either of the others, and running for much of the way through barren or even desert country, it had the great advantage of being open the year round; and was conse- quently looked upon as the most available of the three by postal officials.
Over this route a mail service was established from San Diego to San Antonio, Texas, in 1857. Guinn quotes from the San Diego Herald this description of the departure of the first mail:
"The pioneer mail train from San Diego to San Antonio, Texas, under the contract entered into by the government with Mr. James Burch, left here on the 9th inst. [August 9, 1857] at an early hour in the morning and is now pushing its way for the east at a rapid rate. The mail was of course carried on pack animals, as will be the case until wagons which are being pushed across will have been put on the line. . .. The first mail from the other side has not yet arrived, although somewhat overdue, and con- jecture is rife as to the cause of the delay."
The government contract with Burch, mentioned in the quotation, was only on a temporary basis, pending the pas- sage through Congress of the long delayed Overland California Mail Bill. And in the closing hours of Pierce's administra- tion, this measure, after a deal of wrangling, finally became a law. Under the terms of the act, the Postmaster General was empowered to select a route, determine the frequency of the service, and advertise for bids for the transportation of all letter mail from the Mississippi to San Francisco. The contract was to run for six years and called for a subsidy of $300,000 annually for semi-monthly service; $450,000 for weekly service; and $600,000 for semi-weekly service, at the option of the Postmaster General.
Nine bids were made for this contract; but the award finally went to the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, a concern closely affiliated with Wells-Fargo, and controlled almost entirely by New York stockholders. The southern route was selected by the Postmaster General, and St. Louis chosen as the location of the central depot of supplies. All
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sections of the country, as a contemporary newspaper pointed out, thus shared to some extent in the advantages of the contract.
The route of the Overland Mail, as Butterfield's Company came to be known, can be best shown from the following "time table" printed in a newspaper of the period.
Miles
Hrs. Mi.
San Francisco to Los Angeles
464
80:00
Los Angeles to Fort Yuma.
280
72:20
Fort Yuma to Tucson.
280
71:45
Tucson to Franklin (El Paso)
360
82:00
Franklin to Fort Chadbourne.
428
128:40
Fort Chadbourne to Colbert's Ferry (Red River)
283
62:25
Colbert's Ferry to Fort Smith.
192
38:00
Fort Smith to Tipton.
313
48:55
Tipton to St. Louis [By railroad].
160
11:40
Between Los Angeles and San Francisco the route passed through San José, Gilroy, Pacheco Pass, Fresno City, Visalia, Fort Tejon, French John's, San Fernando and a number of other settlements which at that time enjoyed a reputation and a name.
From St. Louis to San Francisco the postage on first-class mail was three cents for each half ounce. Three sacks of letters, averaging 170 pounds in weight, and a newspaper bag, of about 140 pounds, were carried by each coach. These coaches were substantially built, and at a pinch could accommodate six passengers. From four to six horses or mules were attached to each coach. They traveled day and night, running on a maximum schedule of twenty-five days for the one way trip. This maximum time, however, was seldom required, except where delays occurred from Indian attacks or flooded rivers.
There was likely to be irregularity, however, in the mail service between Memphis and Fort Smith; and as the Butterfield stages picked up the southern mail at this point for conveyance to California, such delay sometimes inter- fered with the normal schedule. Probably the quickest
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THE OVERLAND MAIL AND PONY EXPRESS
trip on record was made in 1859, when the mail leaving St. Louis on September 16th reached Los Angeles on October 3, having been on the road only seventeen days, six hours and ten minutes.
The business of the Butterfield Company was conducted in a thoroughly systematic manner and on a very large scale. Nearly eight hundred men were in the employ of the com- pany. The equipment consisted of more than a hundred Concord coaches, a thousand horses, and five hundred mules. Stations were built (wherever possible), at ten mile intervals. These were ordinarily of adobe, and the government al- lowed 320 acres of land for building and grazing purposes at each station. In sections where there was danger of Indian attack, a guard of twenty or twenty-five men was placed at each station to protect the company's property and to con- voy the mail coach through the hostile country.
The fare from Memphis or St. Louis to San Francisco was $200. Passengers had to furnish their own meals, but were given facilities for preparing them at the company stations. Each passenger was allowed to carry forty pounds of baggage without cost. He was advised to equip himself for the journey with the following outfit:
One Sharp's rifle and a hundred cartridges; a Colt's navy re- volver and two pounds of balls; a knife and sheath; a pair of thick boots and woolen pants; a half dozen pairs of thick cotton socks; six undershirts; three woolen undershirts; a wide-awake hat; a cheap sack coat, and a soldier's overcoat; one pair of blankets in summer and two in winter; a piece of India rubber cloth, a pair of gauntlets, a small bag of needles, pins, etc .; two pair of thick drawers, three or four towels, and various toilet articles.
The Overland Mail was looked upon by all right minded Southern Californians as a local institution, or at least as belonging principally to the southern part of the state. Northern California was somewhat chagrined at the choice of the southern route, and many of the states east of the Rocky Mountains likewise felt aggrieved at the Postmaster General's decision. For although a mail service was main-
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
tained between Placerville and St. Joseph, Missouri, by way of Salt Lake; and a line was supposed to run from Stockton to Kansas City by way of Albuquerque, neither of these could compete successfully with the Butterfield subsidy.
Partly, therefore, as a result of this sectional rivalry, and partly to meet a real economic need, one of the most spec- tacular of western ventures was set on foot in the spring of 1860. This was the famous Pony Express, more important, if the truth be told, from the standpoint of romance than of commercial success. The first trip of this new and short- lived enterprise was begun amid great enthusiasm. The San Francisco Bulletin of April 7, 1860, contained this paragraph :
"From 1 o'clock till a quarter to 4 on Tuesday last, a clean- limbed, hardy little nankeen colored pony stood at the door of the Alta Telegraph Company's office-the pioneer pony of the fam- ous express which that day began its first trip across the continent. The little fellow looked all unaware of his famous future. Two little flags adorned his head-stall, from the pommel of his saddle hung, on each side, a bag lettered "Overland Pony Express." The broad saddle, wooden stirrups, immense flappers to guard the rider's feet, and the girth that knows no buckle, were of the sort customary in California for swift horsemen who appreciate mud. At a quarter to 4 he took up his line of march to the Sacra- mento boat. Personally, he will make short work of the under- taking, and probably be back in a day; but by proxy he will put the West behind his heels like a very Puck, and be in at New York in thirteen days from this writing. At 3 o'clock the letters he had to carry numbered 53; probably his whole cargo will be 75 or 80 letters at $5 each. Those which use both pony and tele- graph expect to be landed in New York in nine days after quit- ting San Francisco."
The Pony Express riders were picked with the greatest care and represented the hardiest and bravest of western men. Each rider was provided with a complete buckskin suit with hair on the outside to shed the rain. He also carried one or more Colt's six shooters, eight inches in length; and a knife eighteen inches long. Each man rode
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THE OVERLAND MAIL AND PONY EXPRESS
a stretch of one hundred miles, though on occasion riders were known to carry the mail three times the regular dis- tance without rest or sleep. Eleven hours was the maximum time allowed for the hundred miles, and each rider was required to make at least 400 miles a week. The Pony Express, except in the hardest weather, furnished a much more rapid service than the Overland Mail, but its charges were high; it had no government subsidy, and its route was subject to serious blockades by snow.3
This last difficulty sometimes furnished the good citizens of Los Angeles with cause for rejoicing. When, for example, in February, 1861, the despatches brought by the Overland Mail to Los Angeles were telegraphed to San Francisco, arriving there ahead of the Pony Express, a great celebra- tion was held in the southern metropolis in honor of the Overland Mail and the Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph.4 And it may be remarked in passing that a celebration in the Los Angeles society of the sixties was always carried out with spirit and fervor-a large part of which, whatever the occa- sion, came out of kegs, bottles, and other containers of poten- tial enthusiasm.
With the outbreak of the Civil War, the Butterfield Mail service, since it ran through southern territory the larger part of the way, was discontinued. Part of the equipment owned by the company was seized by the Confederates; and part was sold to the Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express (C. O. C. & P. P. ), a recently organized and very powerful company, operating between Salt Lake and Atchison, Missouri. The remainder of the Butterfield equipment was used to establish a line between Salt Lake and Virginia City, Nevada.
This last line was later run in connection with the Pioneer Stage from Virginia City to Sacramento, and with the C. O. C. & P. P. from Salt Lake to Atchison. A through mail and stage service from Sacramento to the Missouri was thus
3 The rates was gradually reduced from $5 to $1.50 a letter.
4 The line had been completed between Los Angeles and San Fran- cisco since October 8, 1860.
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
at last established. A daily mail service was soon operated over this route, and a schedule maintained under which each coach made a minimum of 112 miles a day. The presiding genius of the new overland line was the widely known Ben Holladay. Obtaining an annual subsidy of $1,000,000 for the transmission of through and local mails between Atchison and Sacramento, Holladay enlarged his equipment, improved the passenger service, and extended his business so success- fully that he finally had some 3,300 miles of stage lines under his control. In 1866 he sold his entire business to the Wells- Fargo interests, a company which had already gotten pos- session of the Pioneer Stage and the original Overland Mail.
In 1868 the government granted Wells-Fargo a yearly subsidy of $1,750,000 for a daily mail service to California; and under the incentive of this subsidy, stages were once more restored to the old Butterfield route. But the age of the railroad was at hand, and the day of the overland stage came to an end. It had served its purpose, however, by writing a new chapter in western romance and by breaking down to some degree the isolation of a state.
This chapter is based largely upon Cleland, Transportation in California before the railroads, in Historical Society of Southern California, Annual Publications, v. XI, Pt. 1.
CHAPTER XXV
BACKGROUND OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD
On July 1, 1862, when the nation was beset by the danger and stress of the Civil War, President Lincoln signed a bill entitled "An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes." Ten nights later the city of San Francisco gave itself up to a magnificent celebra- tion in honor of an event for which all California had waited with impatience or despair for nearly fifteen years. A newspaper of the time thus described the jubilation:
"A multitude of flaring lamps and torches and blue lights, with any number of banners; over fifty transparencies of red and white and other colors; fountains of yellow sparks bubbling up every here and there; meteoric white and red and blue lights shooting hither and thither from Roman candles; and rockets soaring high into the air leaving long tracks of yellow sparks and then bursting in many colored balls overhead-thus the long and brilliant procession marched in a blaze of lights, while the air was thick with smoke and loud with the music of clamoring bands, shriekings of the steam whistle, and the thunders of cannon."
Among the most interesting features of the procession were the fifty or more transparencies borne between the long lines of shouting people. From the wording of these in- scriptions, it is possible to gather something of the spirit of the occasion. One read,
"The Locomotive-His prow is wet with the surge and foam of either ocean;
His breast is grim with the sands of the desert."
369
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
Another bore these lines,
" A Union of lakes-a Union of hands; A Union of States none can sever; A Union of hearts-a Union of hands, And the Railroad unites us forever."
A slightly different theme, as well as a different literary flavor, was contained in such expressions as "Cape Horn be blowed-Salt Lake City the Half-way House;" and "Chesa- peake Bay Oysters-six days from the water." The boosting spirit was also much in evidence, as appeared in, "California, the Watering-place of the World;" and in the following not yet accomplished prophecy,
"San Francisco in 1862-100,000 inhabitants; San Francisco in 1872-1,000,000 inhabitants."
"The Pacific Railroad," said another, "Uncle Sam's Waist- band. He has grown so corpulent he would burst without it." But of all the transparencies none better expressed the sentiment of the time than that which ran,
"The Trans-Continental Railway-Its construction no longer promised to our ear, to be broken to our hope."
For, in truth, the final enactment of the Pacific Railroad bill was the culmination of a long, vexatious, and at times ap- parently hopeless struggle.
Beginning in 1832, with the publication of an anonymous article in the Emigrant, a weekly newspaper of Ann Arbor, Michigan, advocating the construction of a transcontinental railway, the idea of a road to the Pacific was brought forward from time to time by various "visionaries," until at last it found a real champion in the person of Asa Whitney. Whit- ney, fresh from a two years' stay in China, had an admirable genius for sustained enthusiasm. On January 28, 1845, he laid before the Senate the first of a long series of memorials dealing with the project of a line from Lake Michigan to Oregon. During the next eight years he devoted his time,
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BACKGROUND OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD
and much of his private fortune, seeking to educate Congress and the American public to think in terms of a continent.
Whitney's plan, while providing for the construction of the road at private hands, called for the grant to the com- pany of a strip of public land sixty miles wide and extending from one terminus of the line to the other. The land covered by this grant, however, was to be sold at a low figure to actual settlers; and the road itself upon completion was to become the property of the nation.
This proposal, afterwards modified in some important particulars, aroused much popular interest; and by the close of 1848 no less than seventeen state legislatures, besides many unofficial bodies, had petitioned Congress for its adoption. The opponents of Whitney's plan, however, even from the beginning, were about as numerous as its advocates. Their objections were based chiefly upon four grounds. The cost and difficulty of building any road across the continent, it was said, made the undertaking a stupendous piece of folly; the land grants sought by Whitney were a colossal robbery of the public; the enterprise ought to be taken wholly out of private hands and made a government affair; and, finally, the proposed route across the continent was much inferior to others that might have been selected.
With public opinion divided by these various differences, it was impossible to expect Congress for many years to sanction Whitney's undertaking, or, in fact, to unite on any plan for the construction of a Pacific railroad. The chief disagree- ment arose over the question of routes; for nearly every section of the country, looking to its own local interests, advocated some particular line to the west and denounced other proposals as impractical or sectional. After 1850, however, upon at least one point opinion was tolerably well united. It was generally accepted that the road should terminate in California instead of in Oregon, a change from Whitney's original plan made necessary by the acquisition of the Mexican War territory, and the inrush of population into California caused by the gold excitement.
For a time the impression prevailed throughout the
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A HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
country, and even in Congress, that almost any of the transcontinental trails, over which wagons could be taken, were feasible for a railroad. But by 1852, the choice had pretty well narrowed down to four or five main routes. Of these, the line proposed by Whitney from Lake Michigan to the Columbia by way of the South Pass, with a branch to San Francisco, was the most northerly. It followed in the main the course of one of the oldest and most travelled of the western trails.
Somewhat to the south of this, running between the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth parallels, lay a line proposed by Senator Benton, with its starting point at St. Louis and its terminus at San Francisco. Benton, who had long been interested in western transportation, especially in its relation to Asiatic commerce, was known as a vigorous opponent both of Whitney's route and of his proposed land grants. In lieu of these, the Missouri Senator urged the route mentioned above, and the construction of the road at government expense.
Part of the route advocated by Benton had been explored by his indefatigable son-in-law, John C. Frémont, who had lost a number of his men and nearly perished himself in the undertaking.1 But even without the knowledge of the route obtained by Frémont, Benton was not one to be seriously disturbed by any lack of scientific data.
"There is a class of topographical engineers," he was wont to declare, "older than the schools and more unerring than the mathematicians. They are the wild animals-buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bears-which traverse the forests not by compass, but by instinct that leads them always the right way to the lowest passes in the mountains, the shallowest fords in the rivers . . . and the shortest practical lines between remote points."
The line Benton proposed crossed from the upper reaches of the Rio Grande to the Grand and Green River basin by way of Coochetopa Pass (a pass Benton's opponents ridiculed
1 This route was more fully ex-
plored in 1853 by E. F. Beale,
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, and Gwinn Harris Heap.
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BACKGROUND OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD
as being the highest peak in the range), and continued almost due west until it reached the Mormon settlements of Paro- wan and Cedar City in southern Utah.2 From this point the road might either turn south some two hundred miles along the course of the Virgin River, and then proceed westward to the Tejon or Walker Pass; or it could continue westward, along its original course, from the Mormon towns to the Sierra Nevadas, skirting south along the base of these moun- tains until a pass should be found into the San Joaquin. Branches from the main railroad were to be built to Santa Fé, Salt Lake City, and the Columbia.
Another transcontinental route, persistently urged and popular in many quarters, traversed the state of Texas to El Paso, followed the Gila to the Colorado, and thence crossed the desert to San Diego over the course followed by Colonel Emory in 1847. This was commonly known as the southern, or thirty-second parallel route, and was afterwards made use of in part by the first Overland Mail. A road along this line was naturally favored by the southern states because of what it meant to their economic development. The charge that slavery dictated this choice, though often made, is scarcely tenable. Entirely apart from sectional interests, the route had much to commend it because of its easy grades and almost complete freedom from snow. These advantages, however, were somewhat offset by its additional length, compared to the more direct routes, and the desert territory through which it passed.
In addition to these three main routes-the Northern, the Central, and the Southern-there were a number of others of somewhat less importance.3 Among the most likely of these minor routes was one especially championed by Senator Gwin of California.4 From San Francisco it ran down the San Joaquin, crossed the Sierras through Walker Pass, and continued along the thirty-fifth parallel to Al- buquerque, New Mexico. Thence it turned south to a
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