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Overland Stage Lines

Stage line operated by by Ben Holladay from 1861 – 1869.

In 1860, the U. S. Post Office awarded a government contract to the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company to carry mail by coach between St. Joseph, Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory. To expand its contract, the company founded the Pony Express, running the mail and other light freight by horseback from St. Joseph to Sacramento, California, establishing the Overland Trail.

With the introduction of the telegraph in 1861, the Pony Express and its parent company became obsolete and went bankrupt. The assets were sold to Holladay, who was awarded the government mail contract after the southern mail route from Memphis to San Francisco through New Mexico Territory was closed with the inception of the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the Civil War.[1]

Holladay retained the government mail contract throughout the Civil War, afterwhich he sold it and the Overland Stage Lines to Wells Fargo and Company in 1866. The operation continued until the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.[1]

Locomotives rendered most mail and other express services by stage obsolete, yet the need for shorter routes for light freight and passengers remained for towns and camps too distant from the rails. Assets of the Overland Stage Lines were sold off to smaller regional and local stage lines for transportation to and from destinations with no rail service.

The Thirty-Ninth Star: In July of 1876, Bart Maverick traveled[1] from Grantsville,[1] Utah Territory to Salt Lake City[2] with Janet Kilmer, Judge Somervell, Charles W. Farfan and Quincy Bigelow on a stagecoach still marked with the old Overland Stage Lines and U. S. Mail imprints. The next day, Bart and Janet chased another such marked stagecoach carrying Bigelow out of Salt Lake City east of town. When they caught up to the stage, the driver told them Bigelow got out at the Old Wagon Road and headed north on foot.[1]