Origins
Through the 1840s and 1850s there was a desire for better communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Though there were several proposals for railroads connecting the two coasts a more immediate realization was an overland mail route across the west. Congress authorized the Postmaster General to contract for mail service from Missouri to California as a means of facilitating more settlement in the west overall. The Post Office Department advertised for bids for an overland mail service on April 20, 1857. Bidders were to propose routes from the Mississippi River westward.
John W. Butterfield and his associates William B. Dinsmore, William G. Fargo, James V. P. Gardner, Marcus L. Kinyon, Alexander Holland, and Hamilton Spencer created a proposal for a southern route beginning in St. Louis and heading west to California. The Post Office Department received nine bids in all. The Postmaster-general, Brown, was from Tennessee and favored a southern route. Although none of the bidders had provided for the route, the Postmaster-general advocated a southerly route, known as the Oxbow Route, with the idea that it could remain in operation during the winter months.
"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 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."
This route was an extra 600 miles (970 km) longer than the central and northern routes running through Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah, but was snow free. The bid and route was awarded to Butterfield and his associates, for semi-weekly mail at $600,000 per year. At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US.
Read more about this topic: Butterfield Overland Mail
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