No Contract for Russell, Majors & Waddell
What had happened was this: the Post Office Department cut off mail service to California via steamer from New York with the expectation that the bill to forward it overland would pass Congress.…
Freighting delays in 1860
The contract for freighting supplies on the New Mexico Route in 1860-61 provided for loading and starting at the usual time, in May or June. Russell, Majors & Waddell, as usual, bought wagons,…
Bradford & Company, Denver
By midsummer 1859, Majors and Waddell were convinced that there was something substantial about the Pike's Peak business after all. Together with Russell they formed a partnership with Robert B. Bradford, a relative…
Miller, Russell & Company
Being bankrupt and going in deeper every day did not dampen Russell's sanguine spirit or put a crimp in his tendency to speculate. In the spring of 1858, when every dollar was…
Amount of Losses for the Mormon Conflict
With heavy forebodings he made out a bill against the United States for losses which was later presented to Congress. Summarized, it read $493,553.61. . . . Worst of all, when the…
Panic of 1836
The bitterest money war in American history and the wildest speculation of the nineteenth century had precipitated the first national depression. The final Specie Circular, Andrew Jackson's broadside at the…
Russell’s Pike’s Peak Venture
As one cons the history of Russell and Waddell and the record of their vast undertakings he is impressed again and again by the fact that many of their decisions,…
Russell Starts New Companies Instead of Paying Debts
Fortune favored them in 1855 and 1856, and their profits from freighting military supplies those two years amounted to about $300,000. That was the only period of unbroken prosperity they…
Russell’s Freighting Expands
While Majors was expanding his freighting business in the latter 1840’s and early 1850’s Waddell and Russell were reaching out in various directions at Lexington and elsewhere. In 1850 Russell,…
Russell’s First Business Failure
In 1838 he resigned his position at Aull’s, and in partnership with James S. Allen and William Early opened a retail store under the name of Allen, Russell & Company.…
Russell’s Stagecoach Company’s Debt
No amount of positive publicity, however, resolved the unpaid debts the L & PPE continued to incur. Although the line ran a regular schedule, operating costs exceeded passenger fare receipts…
Russell’s Stagecoach Moves to the Platte Route
On May 11, 1859, not even one month after the L & PPE coaches started running, Jones, Russell & Company purchased the United States mail contract from John M. Hockaday…
Russell’s Smoky Hill Route
The route began at Leavenworth, Kansas Territory, followed the Republican and Solomon Rivers staying between the Platte Route and the Smoky Hill Route then converged with the Smoky Hill Route…
Russell’s Stagecoach to Denver
The rumored and realized riches from the Rocky Mountains not only piqued the interests of gold seekers, but it captivated entrepreneurs foreseeing goods and services necessary for the emigrants' livelihood.…
Paying Tributes
"As at St. Joe and in the west bottoms the emigrants had been pestered by 'dirty looking redskins' looking for handouts. These were the more shiftless members of the Kickapoo,…