Page 6 - ah1901

"This provision is inserted in the contract with Giddings, in writing, that it is made so with
the express understanding that, if any other 'route should be put under contract that shall
cover this in whole or in part, the Postmaster General reserves the power to curtail or dis-
continue the service on this route at his discretion. In addition to this written reservation,
the body of the contract contains a written formula, which by a regulation of the depart-
ment is inserted in all contracts, by which it is made a stipulation that the Postmaster Gen-
eral may discontinue or curtail the service 'whenever the public interests require such dis-
continuance or curtailment for any other cause, he allowing one month's extra pay on the
amount of service dispensed with;"
11

Birch had been given less than a month to stock the line, but the time was too short
to construct stage stations and improve the route of the trail. The line zigzagged from
waterhole-to-waterhole following the Emigrant Trail. The line was unique in its ac-
complishment. It was the method used to supply fresh teams for the stages, instead
of building stage stations containing livestock, that stands out as the genius of the
organizers of this colorful line. The establishment of the line and its shortcomings
was summed up by this passage:

"Yet the purpose of its earliest manifestation was, and must remain a mystery. The San
Antonio & San Diego Mail, popularly known as 'The Jackass Mail,' may as well have been
routed over the poles of the moon for all the good, in itself, it was ever to do toward solving
the problem. As a means of communication between Eastern and Western civilization it
was practically useless. As an aid to emigration it led 'from no place through nothing to
nowhere,' and found, therefore, very few emigrants to aid. Reports, for example, of ten
thousand California-bound wagons trekking over the Central or Salt Lake route were ac-
companied by other reports of no wagons at all west of El Paso on the line of the unac-
countable Jackass, Why, then, had it been conceived?"
12

Although the above statement was somewhat harsh, there were emigrants on the
Southern Overland Trail. The number was fewer than on the Central Overland Trail.
After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, this wagon trail was used by many
emigrants heading to the gold fields. According to Colonel Corrasco of the Mexican
Army, in 1849, 12,000 emigrants crossed the Colorado River at its junction with the
Gila. Emigration on the Southern Overland Trail was heavy until 1853 and then
13
steadily declined. In 1858, when John Butterfield's Overland Mail Company signif-
icantly improved the trail, the emigrant travel on the trail again increased.
Instead of building stage stations and providing water along the trail by digging
wells, making Mexican style tanks (berms across washes), or digging-out springs
to provide adequate water, the line operated using frontier knowhow. Only one
crude station was constructed in Arizona at Maricopa Wells. With the exception of
the first few trips, the requirements of the mail contract were met, but the method

6