revenues,
whereupon it was abolished July 1st, 1859.

By the close of 1859 there were at least six different mail routes
across the continent from the Missouri to the Pacific Coast. They were
costing the Government a total of $2,184,696.00 and returning
$339,747.34. The most expensive of these lines was the New York and New
Orleans Steamship Company route, which ran semi-monthly from New York to
San Francisco via Panama. This service cost $738,250.00 annually and
brought in $229,979.69. While the steamship people did not have the
frontier dangers to confront them, they were operating over a roundabout
course, several thousand miles in extent, and the volume of their postal
business was simply inadequate to meet the expense of maintaining their
business[36].

The steamer schedule was about four weeks in either direction, and the
rapidly increasing population of California soon demanded, in the early
fifties, a faster and more frequent service. Agitation to that end was
thus started, and during the last days of Pierce's administration, in
March 1857, the "Overland Mail" bill was passed by Congress and signed
by the President. This act provided that the Postmaster-General should
advertise for bids until June 30 following: "for the conveyance of the
entire letter mail from such point on the Mississippi River as the
contractors may select to San Francisco, Cal., for six years, at a cost
not exceeding $300,000 per annum for semi-monthly, $450,000 for weekly,
or $600,000 for semi-weekly service to be performed semi-monthly,
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 Ro