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This section, from James B. Leach's Map No. 2, connects the Southern Overland Trail
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to San Diego. It is from information the Wagon Road Commission compiled in 1857-
1858. The longer “Wagon Road” was for the passenger carrying wagons and the shorter
“Mail Route” was for the mules carrying the mail.

The San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line Passenger Wagons

Little is known about the stages used by the San Antonio and San Diego Mail
Line. Because the stage wagons ordered from J.S. & E.A. Abbot were sold after the
death of James E. Birch, the only availability of stages were well used wagons that
the line could find at forts and settlements along the trail. In November 1857, Super-
intendent Woods reported that the trail was stocked and tells of the wagons used for
carrying passengers:

"The mail line had now nearly or quite two hundred head of mules west of the Rio Grande,
stationed at San Diego, Carissa creek, Fort Yuma, Peterman's, Maricopa wells, Tucson, and
La Mesilla. At each of these places agencies or stations had been established with abundant
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