cially important Government mail. A good part of the road was little better than a trail made by horsemen and pack animals. There was, however, a wagon road from Tipton to Ft. Smith, Ark., and from El Paso to Yuma, the latter having been constructed by the Government. Although stages had been in operation from Los Angeles to San Francisco since 1854, the road across the Indian Territory and Texas was unbroken. Little or no work was ever done on the balance, except the building of a few short bridges and the cutting down of the banks of streams, the road going around obstacles rather than incurring the expense of removing them.

The trip was a hard and laborious one and not to be undertaken rashly. It meant twenty odd days confined in a hard-seated and practically springless stage coach, with the constant jar, night and day; at certain portions of the journey being exposed to rain, and at others to the dust and heat from the desert by day, and to the cold by night. For long stretches water had to be hauled to the stations for miles. In Western Texas there was one station where water for both man and beast had to be hauled in casks twenty-two miles during four-fifths of the year. The stock being mostly of the variety known as bronchos, were vicious and unruly. It was not only trying on the nerves but an absolute nuisance with each fresh team, to have to go through the same process, bucking and rearing, followed by a stampede, only brought to an end by exhaustion, during which time the stage would run sometimes on one wheel and then on the other, over rocks and gullies, sometimes on

the road, but oftener off it. Altogether the trip seemed to bear out the estimate made by an old Californian, who, writing from the East after having made the trip, said: "I know now what hell is, for I have had twenty-four days of it."

The trip was made only by those to whom time was an object, all others taking the less trying routes by Panama or Nicaragua, or even around Cape Horn.

The through passage cost $150 exclusive of meals, which were from forty cents to a dollar each. The bill of fare, outside of an occasional item of game, was abominable, consisting, according to the records, of chicory coffee, sweetened with molasses or brown sugar; hot, heavy biscuit; fried pork, floating in grease, and corn bread, from the hands of the frontier cook, soggy and unpalatable.

The Indians from Ft. Smith to the Colorado River were a constant menace. The desperadoes of the Southwest, composed largely of Mexicans from Sonora, were even worse than the Apaches. Another bad element was made up of fugitives from justice from the Eastern states and California, it being asserted that Judge Lynch and the San Francisco Vigilantes were Arizona's best emigrant agencies. These regarded the Mexicans with great contempt, and the feeling between the two classes was bitter, resulting in a race war practically all the time.

In the four years ending 1861, one hundred and eleven Americans and fifty-seven Mexicans met violent deaths.

At the beginning of the Thirty-seventh Congress, in March, 1860, the country was on the

verge of internal war. The Southern element, which had caused the selection of this route, no longer controlled Congress. It was also apparent that the Southern States would secede from the Union, and that the line must be discontinued or changed to a different route. The route was never a popular one. The great overland emigration followed the much shorter and less hazardous one by way of South Pass and Salt Lake. By act of Congress, approved March 2nd, 1861, the Southern Overland Mail Company was authorized and required to change from the Butterfield to the Central route, via South Pass and Salt Lake, the eastern terminus being fixed at St. Louis, Missouri, the western at Placerville, California. For this they were to receive one million of dollars per year for transporting the mail, and were required to handle letter mail six times a week on a twenty day schedule during eight months of the year, and on a twentythree day schedule during the remaining four months; other mail to be carried on a thirty-five day schedule. Denver was to have a tri-weekly service; the company to run a pony express, etc. The charge for the pony express for delivering a letter was ten cents, and the time ten days from the Missouri River.

The old company was given a year in which to rearrange the route, being allowed the regular pay under their old contract for so much of this time as was required in removing their equipment and stock, and two months' pay as indemnity for damages and losses incurred. Service from St. Louis over the Butterfield route was discontinued April 1st, 1861, and on July 1st of

the same year, the new company started their first stage from St. Joseph. In abandoning this old route, they, of course, sacrificed all the improvements they had made in the way of stations, ferries, etc. They also suffered heavily from the loss of stock, equipment and forage. The Texans confiscated all they could gather together, and the Indians, emboldened by the withdrawal of the troops, made a number of attacks, to the great detriment of the service and loss to the company, so it will be seen that the transfer of the stock and equipment was made in the face of great difficulties; it was no child's play to move a great number of stages and stock from Texas and Arizona to the Missouri route.

Notwithstanding overland service had been demanded by the public for a long time, when the service was established, the public was slow to avail themselves of it. During October, 1858, but two thousand five hundred and nine letters were carried; in October, 1859, sixty-four thousand, and in March, 1860, one hundred and twelve thousand, six hundred and forty-five. The total postage paid on mail carried on the route from the start, September 15, 1858, up to March 31, 1860, was $71,378.00, about $3,860.00 per month, while it was costing the Postoffice Department $50,000.00 per month. It had hardly been established before efforts were made in Congress to withdraw it. Efforts to change the service to weekly trips instead of semiweekly, were attempted. The Butterfield Company, however, stood upon their contract, and no change was made. The agitation was largely

owing to the sectional fight in Congress at the time.

Financially the line was a failure. Its returns from passengers were comparatively small, the mail contract just about paying running expenses. The originators never received any returns from their original investment. The Company was quite willing to part with their entire right, which they did by sale in 1861, to Ben Holliday and the Wells, Fargo & Company Express Company.

Over the Butterfield route was hauled machinery for the betterment of the Heintzelman and the Mowry mines. Prospectors covered that portion of the country, locating mining claims which eventually proved quite valuable. As already stated in this history, Colonel Poston raised the capital necessary for the development of what was known as the Heintzelman Mine, Major Heintzelman, afterwards a Major-General in the Federal Army, being President of the Company. They shipped large quantities of rich ore, some of it going as high as four and five thousand dollars a ton in silver, to the East, which served to throw new light upon the mineral resources of Arizona. Colonel Heintzelman secured a furlough from the Army, and for two years employed himself actively as Superintendent of the mine, up to 1860. Regarding the products of this mine, Poston says that it was yielding a profit of from twelve to fifteen thousand dollars a month, more than one-half of the ore reduced being net profit.

The same success attended the working of the Mowry mine. Lieutenant Mowry was a West