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Speedy Delivery
Today you can get a package from St. Louis to California in less than 24 hours. But before planes and trains, speedy deliveries to the West went by stagecoach.
Henry Wells, William Fargo, and John Butterfield capitalized on the country's rapid westward expansion. In the 1850s, they built an express stagecoach delivery service between St. Louis and California. A few years later in 1857, Butterfield started the Overland Mail Company after he won a government contract to deliver US mail between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California. Their success reinforced St. Louis as the gateway to the west.
Every week the Overland Mail Company sent stagecoaches on a 2,812-mile journey to deliver mail to California in 25 days or less.
Wells, Fargo, and Butterfield were partners in the American Express Company and Wells, Fargo & Company, providing express travel and banking services from here westward. |