Page 115 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

horse and two-seat carriage, started his own busi- ness. By 1849 he had expanded into the lake steamer trade and that year organized the Butterfield and Wasson Express Company. Soon thereafter he merged with two other similar firms, Wells and Company and the Livingston and Fargo Express. Thus the American Express Company was formed in 1850, and Butterfield would remain one of its directors until his death November 14, 1869.83
The organizations responding to the call for bids had more at stake than the subsidized mail contract. The government would be paying to support a transportation line that would also be permitted to carry passengers and freight, but only the revenue from the mail would belong to the government. In addition, Section 12 of the bid notice stated that the contractors would have the right to preempt 320 acres at each station that was not less than 10 miles from another, unless the land was already encum- bered or had been set aside for the minerals there- on. The nine bids for the new mail contract were opened on July 1, 1857. All bidders had named St. Louis, Missouri, ^as the starting point but proposed
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reaching California by different
Butterfield’s route proposal was calculated to give
as little offense as possible to either north or south.
From St. Louis he would go byway of the well-estab-
lished Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico and then to
California along the 35th parallel. However, Butter-
field, as had the others, included a proviso that he
would consent to route modifications by the govern-
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ment.
friend of President James Buchanan may or may not have had any bearing on the issue, but in any event the contract was awarded to the Overland Mail Company on July 2, 1857. The terms were for six
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years at an annual sum not to exceed $600,000. Postmaster General Brown rejected the Santa Fe Trail proposal and insisted on a southern route with an eastern terminus at Memphis, Tennessee, in ad- dition to the one at St. Louis. The choice of St. Louis for an eastern terminal was an obvious one. Not only did more than a dozen railroads radiate from there but so did more than 70 steamboat lines as well. It would serve as a point from which the mail from the west could be rapidly distributed and an excellent collection point for passengers and mail routed west. Tipton, Missouri, 150 miles west, was
nearly as good with a direct rail connection to St. Louis, and as the railroad moved west, the stage line
couldbecorrespondinglyshortened. Memphishad
The fact that Butterfield was a personal
routes.
Chapter 4
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no railroad.
reachedthatwouldusebothcities. Anotherhitch
developed over where the lines should come
From the juncture a single route would proceed west through Franklin, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona, to California. There were some good reasons for this decision. The more northern routes were some- times closed for as long as four months in the winter. In addition, in 1857 the Mormon Church was at war with the United States, and even though an army was on the plains under the command of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston (supported by Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke and his Second Dragoons), the issue was not settled, nor was the outcome certain.
Following a few negotiations, the specific route was established and the contract signed on September 15. Now all that remained for Butterfield to do was to put the line in working order within the requisite year. To get the line started, he had to build about 150 stations and corrals, dig wells and cisterns, grade fording sites, open new roads or improve old ones, establish supply bases and repair shops, purchase and distribute 1,200 horses and 600 mules, procure several thousand tons of hay and fodder, build
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hundreds of coaches, and hire 750 to 800 men.
For administrative purposes, Butterfield divided the primary route into eastern and western divisions with Franklin the dividing point. These major divisions were then divided into minor divisions, five to the east, and four to the west. Wherever possible within these divisions Butterfield’s field men did not build new way stations but used the homes of farmers and ranchers along the way. Across the more spar- sely populated Southwest, however, new stations were constructed of sod, adobe, or rock. To cross the many rivers, he made use of ferries and natural fording places rather than assuming the costly and
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time consuming tasks of bridge building
The only station Butterfield initially provided be- tween Mesilla and Cooke’s Peak was one at the little community of Picacho where the road wound around the north side of Picacho Peak and ascended the west mesa. The 52 miles from this point to Cooke’s Spring was the longest stretch between sta-
Nevertheless, a compromise was
Butterfield liked Fort Smith, Arkansas,
together.
but Brown insisted on Little Rock. This was to prove impractical, and the roads later merged at Fort Smith as Butterfield had desired.