Francisco was best.

In 1855 Senator W. M. Gwinn of California, who had conceived the idea
with F. B. Ficklin, general-superintendent of the Russel, Majors &
Waddel Co., introduced a bill in Congress for bringing the mails by
horseback on the northern route, but the measure was pigeonholed.
Snow in the mountains was the main argument against it.

In 1857 James E. Birch got the contract for carrying a semimonthly
mail from San Antonio, Texas, to San Diego, and the southern route's
champions had the opportunity to prove their contention.

Save for a few brief stretches in Texas and Arizona there was no wagon
road. El Paso and Tucson were the only towns between the termini. A
few far-flung military outposts, whose troops of dragoons were having
a hard time of it to hold their own against the Comanches and Apaches,
afforded the only semblance of protection from the Indians.

Horsemen carried the first mail-sacks across this wilderness of dark
mountains and flaming deserts. On that initial trip Silas St. Johns
and Charles Mason rode side by side over the stretch from Cariso Creek
to Jaeger's Ferry, where Yuma stands to-day. That ride took them
straight through the Imperial valley. The waters of the Colorado,
which have made the region famous for its rich crops, had not been
diverted in those days. It was the hottest desert in North America;
sand hills and blinding alkali flats, and only one tepid spring in the
whole distance. One hundred and ten miles and the two horsemen made it
in thirty-two hours--without remounts.

The company now began to prepare the way for stage-coaches. During the
latter part of November, St. Johns and two companions drove a herd of
stock from Jaeger's Ferry to Maricopa Wells. The latter point had been
selected for a relay station because of water and the presence of the
friendly Pima and Maricopa Indians, who kept the Apaches at a
distance. During that drive of something like two hundred miles the
pack-mule lost his load one night in the desert. The men went without
food for three days, and for thirty-six hours traveled without a drop
of water in their canteens.

The first stage left San Diego for the East in December with six
passengers. Throughout the trip a hostler rode behind herding a relay
team. The driver kept his six horses to their utmost for two hours;
then stock and wearied passengers were given a two hours' rest, after
which the fresh team was hooked up and the journey resumed.