ndependence, Missouri. By terms of
this agreement, Woodson was to haul the mail monthly from Independence
on the Missouri River to Salt Lake City, twelve hundred miles, and
return. Woodson later arranged with some Utah citizens to carry a mail
between Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie, the service connecting with the
Independence mail at the former place. This supplementary line was put
into operation August 1, 1851.

In the early fifties, while the California gold craze was still on, a
monthly route was laid out between Sacramento and Salt Lake City[35].
This service was irregular and unreliable; and since the growing
population of California demanded a direct overland route, a four year
monthly contract was granted to W. F. McGraw, a resident of Maryland.
His subsidy from Congress was $13,500.00 a year. In those days it often
took a month to get mail from Independence to Salt Lake City, and about
six weeks for the entire trip. Although McGraw charged $180.00 fare for
each passenger to Salt Lake City, and $300.00 to California, he failed,
in 1856. The unexpired contract was then let to the Mormon firm of
Kimball & Co., and they kept the route in operation until the Mormon
troubles of 1857 when the Government abrogated the agreement.

In the summer of 1857, General Albert Sidney Johnston, later of Civil
War fame, was sent out with a Federal army of five thousand men to
invade Utah. After a rather fruitless campaign, Johnston wintered at
Fort Bridger, in what is southwestern Wyoming, not far from the Utah
line. During this interval, army supplies were hauled from Fort
Leavenworth with only a few way stations for changing teams. This
improvised line, carrying mail occasionally, which went over the old
Mormon trail via South Pass, and Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger,
was for many months the only service available for this entire region.

The next contract for getting mail into Utah was let in 1858 to John M.
Hockaday of Missouri. Johnston's army was then advancing from winter
quarters at Bridger toward the valley of Great Salt Lake, and the
Government wanted mail oftener then once a month. In consideration of
$190,000.00 annually which was to be paid in monthly installments,
Hockaday agreed to put on a weekly mail. This route, which ran from St.
Joseph to Salt Lake City, was later combined with a line that had been
running from Salt Lake to Sacramento, thus making a continuous weekly
route to and from California. For t