I'm happy to announce that TwoDot Books will be publishing my travel narrative about my summer 2021 Bikepacking trip on the Pony Express Trail. Expected publication date is 2023. In…
The Upper Crossing of the South Fork of the Platte apparently went by several names including "Laramie Crossing," "Goodale's Crossing," "Morrell's Crossing," and later "Julesburg" or "Overland City," although Julesburg came to…
Under the Hockaday regime Joeeph A. Slade hnd served as agent of the division from the Upper Crossing of the Platte to South Pass. When the "C. O. C." was organized Benjamin…
Richard F. Burton, English author, traveler, and explorer of India, Arabia, the Lake region of Central Africa (the discoverer of Lake Tanganyika), and explorer of the highlands of Brazil, was later knighted…
The following message of W. B. Majors, who arrived on the Utah mail coach at the same time as Thompson, indicates that the employees on the overland route also endured much privation…
Alexander Majors of the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell termed the Fort Kearny route the best natural road on the continent and believed it the best in the world.
Gwin, in hopes of extricating himself, struck a bargain with the Administration. It was agreed that he was to obstruct the Colfax bill and to allow the session to expire without action; afterwards he…
In the spring of 1860, W. H. Russell established his Pony Express in order to demonstrate once for all the superiority of the South Pass route.
In April, 1858, the Postmaster General entered into two new contracts applying to the South Pass route. The first, with George Chorpenning, provided for semi-monthly, twenty-day trips between Salt Lake City and Placerville; the…
Brown's writings indicate that he was interested in this aggressive movement on behalf of the South. Three elements entered into his policy: the question of emigration, the problem of the Pacific railroad, and…
Brown now undertook to justify his action, which seemed unlawful, and which had earned for him the hostility of the Northern press, of the contractors, and of the residents of upper California. He…
With the passage of this act, the matter went to Postmaster General Aaron V. Brown. Brown was a Tennesseean sympathetic with Buchanan's policies, a leader in the councils of the Democrats, and a…
[Benton] had his eye on the Pacific railroad, which he thought he was about to establish on his central route. The overland mail, he said, "will give the Central route a development, a…
The agitation worked itself in the formidable wagon road movement which, in 1856, culminated in a monster petition signed by 75,000 Californians who wanted a wagon road constructed over, and an overland mail placed…
As soon as the idea of the overland stage was suggested, the postal feature of it became subsidiary to other interests. The Senate Committee in 1849 recognized then that here was a scheme…