In 1860 the famous western
company, Russell, Majors and Waddell, became the Overland Stage Company. They
had recently obtained the contracts to carry all of the mail from the Missouri
River to the Pacific coast. To supplement their income they also carried
passengers. (Mark Twain gives a great account of travel by the overland stage
in his book, Roughing It, 1872,
didn’t sound like much fun to me) Stage stations were stretched across Wyoming and
the west. A need for more speed brought in the Pony Express with stations 15
mile apart and young riders making wild dashes across the country.
By 1862 the overland stage line
was changed to a southern route (the old Cherokee Trail) to help alleviate the Indian
problems on the more northern route. The entire history of the Overland Stage
lasted only six years; by then the Railroad was the means of moving both mail
and people.
