THE FIRST STAGE INTO DENVER.
In the winter of 1858, while my partner, Mr. W. H. Russell, John S.
Jones, a citizen of Pettis County, Mo., and myself were all in
Washington, D. C., which was about the time that the Pike's Peak
excitement was at its highest pitch, Messrs. Jones and Russell conceived
the idea (I do not know from which one it emanated), and concluded to
put a line of daily coaches in operation between the Missouri River and
Denver City, when Denver was but a few months old. They came to me with
the proposition to take hold of the enterprise with them.
I told them I could not consent to do so, for it would be impossible to
make such a venture, at such an early period of development of this
country, a paying institution, and urgently advised them to let the
enterprise alone, for the above stated reasons. They, however, paid no
attention to my protest, and went forward with their plans, bought 1,000
fine Kentucky mules and a sufficient number of Concord coaches to supply
a daily coach each way between the Missouri River and Denver. At that
time Leavenworth was the starting point on the Missouri. A few months
later, however, they made Atchison the eastern terminus of the line and
Denver the western.
They bought their mules and coaches on credit, giving their notes,
payable in ninety days; sent men out to establish a station every ten to
fifteen miles from Leavenworth due west, going up the Smoky Hill fork of
the Kansas River, through the Territory of Kansas, and direct to
Denver.
The line was organized, stations built and put in running shape in
remarkably quick time.
They made their daily trips in six days, traveling about one hundred
miles every twenty-four hours. The first stage ran into Denver on May
17, 1859. It was looked upon as a great success, so far as putting the
enterprise in good shape was concerned, but when the ninety days expired
and the notes fell due they were unable to meet them. And in spite of my
protests in the commencement of the organization as against having
anything to do with it, it became necessary for Russell, Majors &
Waddell to meet the obligation that Jones & Russell had entered into in
organizing and putting the stock on the line. To save our partner we had
to pay the debts of the concern and take the mules and coaches, or, in
other words, all the paraphernalia of the line, to secure us for the
money we had advanced.
The institution then having become the property of Russell, Majors &
Waddell, we continued to run it daily. A few months after that, we
bought out the semi-monthly line of Hockaday & Liggett, that was running
from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake City, thinking that by blending the
two lines we might bring the business up to where it would pay expenses,
if nothing more.
This we failed in, for the lines, even after being blended, did not
nearly meet expenses. Messrs. Hockaday & Liggett had a few stages,
light, cheap vehicles, and but a few mules, and 110 stations along the
route. They traveled the same team for several hundreds of miles before
changing, stopping every few hours and turning them loose to graze, and
then hitching them up again and going along.
I made a trip in the fall of 1858 from St. Joseph, Mo., to Salt Lake
City in their coaches. It was twenty-one days from the time I left St.
Joseph until I reached Salt Lake, traveling at short intervals day and
night. As soon as we bought them out we built good stations and stables
every ten to fifteen miles all the way from Missouri to Salt Lake, and
supplied them with hay and grain for the horses and provisions for the
men, so they would only have to drive a team from one station to the
next, changing at every station.
Instead of our schedule time being twenty-two days, as it was with
Hockaday & Liggett, and running two per month, we ran a stage each way
every day and made the schedule time ten days, a distance of 1,200
miles. We continued running this line from the summer of 1859 until
March, 1862, when it fell into the hands of Ben Holliday. From the
summer of 1859 to 1862 the line was run from Atchison to Fort Kearney
and from Fort Kearney to Fort Laramie, up the Sweet Water route and
South Pass, and on to Salt Lake City.
This is the route also run by the Pony Express, each pony starting from
St. Joseph instead of Atchison, Kan., from which the stages started. We
had on this line about one thousand Kentucky mules and 300 smaller-sized
mules to run on through the mountain portion of the line, and a large
number of Concord coaches. It was as fine a line, considering the mules,
coaches, drivers, and general outfitting, perhaps, as was ever organized
in this or any other country, from the beginning.
And it was very fortunate for the Government and the people that such a
line was organized and in perfect running condition on the middle route
when the late war commenced, as it would have been impossible to carry
mails on the route previously patronized by the Government, which ran
from San Francisco via Los Angeles, El Paso, Fort Smith, and St. Louis,
for the Southern people would have interfered with it, and would not
have allowed it to run through that portion of the country during the
war.
It turned out that Senator Gwin's original idea with reference to
running a pony express from the Missouri River to Sacramento to prove
the practicability of that route at all seasons of the year was well
taken, and the stage line as well as the pony proved to be of vital
importance in carrying the mails and Government dispatches.
It so transpired that the firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell had to pay
the fiddler, or the entire expense of organizing both the stage line and
the pony express, at a loss, as it turned out, of hundreds of thousands
of dollars. After the United States mail was given to this line it
became a paying institution, but it went into the hands of Holliday just
before the first quarterly payment of $100,000 was made. The Government
paid $800,000 a year for carrying the mails from San Francisco to
Missouri, made in quarterly payments.
The part of the line that Russell, Majors & Waddell handled received
$400,000, and Butterfield & Co. received $400,000 for carrying the mails
from Salt Lake to California. During the war there was a vast amount of
business, both in express and passenger traveling, and it was the only
available practicable line of communication between California and the
States east of the Rocky Mountains.