Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/32

22 AMOS WILLIAM HARTMAN Louis to San Francisco via Little Rock, El Paso, Yuma and Los Angeles. 8 While the Butterfield line was in operation only local mail was carried by the central route. In 1860 the cost of carrying the mail over the St. Joseph, Salt Lake City and Placerville route was over $200,000 and the receipts a little over $5,000. 9 The mail was usually carried in stage coaches drawn by mules. Passengers were carried in the coaches along with the mail. At first the only stations where mules were changed were Fort Kearney, Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger, on the line from Missouri to Salt Lake City. 10 The first regular stage from Salt Lake City to California was established in the summer of 1858. Major George Chorpenning secured a control in May of that year to transport mail and passengers, the passenger fare being $140, and the contractor receiving $130,000 annually. In March, 1860, this line was taken over by Russell, Majors and Waddell, who, it will be remembered, had taken over the St. Joseph-Salt Lake City line the previous year. On June 1, 1860, the stage from Salt Lake City to California was discontinued and the mail carried on mules. 11 Between St. Joseph—commonly called St. Jo—and Salt Lake City, there were fortyfive stations in 1860, where mules were changed and the passengers ate or slept. 12 The schedule time was twenty-one days and the stage coaches seldom made it in less than nineteen, though they could have done so. The reason given for not Hbid. , pp. 986-990; Lummis, op. cit., p. 84. driving more rapidly in summer was that the people of Salt Lake City would thus be led to expect as prompt mail service in winter, when the condition of the road 13 Ibid., p. 5. 9 Senate Executive Documents, 36 Cong., 2 sess., Vol. Ill, Pt. I, Doc. Ser. No. 1080, p. 436. 10 Burton, op. cit., p. 4 . 11 1bid., p . 511.