weekly, or semi-weekly at the option of the Postmaster-General." The
specifications also stipulated a twenty-five day schedule, good coaches,
and four-horse teams.

Bids were opened July 1, 1857. Nine were submitted, and most of them
proposed starting from St. Louis, thence going overland in a
southwesterly direction usually via Albuquerque. Only one bid proposed
the more northerly Central route via Independence, Fort Laramie, and
Salt Lake. The Postoffice Department was opposed to this trail, and its
attitude had been confirmed by the troubles of winter travel in the
past. In fact this route had been a failure for six consecutive winters,
due to the deep snows of the high mountains which it crossed.

On July 2, 1857, the Postmaster General announced the acceptance of bid
No. "12,587" which stipulated a forked route from St. Louis, Missouri
and from Memphis, Tennessee, the lines converging at Little Rock,
Arkansas. Thence the course was by way of Preston, Texas; or as nearly
as might be found advisable, to the best point in crossing the Rio
Grande above El Paso, and not far from Fort Filmore; thence along the
new road then being opened and constructed by the Secretary of the
Interior to Fort Yuma, California; thence through the best passes and
along the best valleys for safe and expeditious staging to San
Francisco. On September is following, a six year contract was let for
this route. The successful firm at once became known as the "Butterfield
Overland Mail Company." Among the firm members were John Butterfield,
Wm. B. Dinsmore, D. N. Barney, Wm. G. Fargo and Hamilton Spencer. The
extreme length of the route agreed upon from St. Louis to San Francisco
was two thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine miles; the most southern
point was six hundred miles south of South Pass on the old Salt Lake
route. Because of the out-of-the-way southern course followed, two and