Wells Fargo and the Wyoming to Nevada Mail Route in 1869
Contract—Overland Pacific Mails
Notes: An interesting glimpse at postal history for coast-to-coast mail in the US before the transcontinental railroad was completed. This report by the Committee on Public Expenditures describes a dispute over the mail contract between the railroad terminus at Cheyenne (now Wyoming, but then part of the Dakota Territory) and Virginia City, Nevada, "1,095 miles, and back, daily." The contract was awarded to Carlton Spaids with a bid of $335,000 per year. Soon after the contract was signed, Congress changed the law and threw the mail that had been going by ship to this arduous overland route. Spaids couldn't continue the contract for that volume and Wells Fargo assumed the route. This is a report on the details of the issue.
8 pages. 40th Congress, 3rd Session. House of Representatives Report No. 24.
Edition + Condition: First edition. A fine, bright, white copy, as fresh as the day it was printing. Saddle stitched, as issued.
Publication: [Washington, DC]: (n.p.), 1869.
Item No: #307418
Price: $50