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The great - grandson of William
Bradford Waddell, one of the
founders of the Pony Express,
describes the most exciting era
in American transportation-that
brief span beginning with the Gold
Rush and ending with the advent
of the rails

in Sacramento. With the advantage of
experience and location, James Birch,
with his partner, Frank S. Stevens, or-
ganized the California Stage Company
on New Year's Day, 1854, with head-
quarters in Sacramento.
This corporation was the result of a
merger, by purchase and otherwise, of
eighty per cent of all of the stage lines
in California. The schedules of the
California Stage Company reached up
and down the State, in and out of the
Mother Lode and up to Portland, Oregon.
Well-organized and well-operated organi-
zation that it was, this company operated
more coaches and traveled more miles
of scheduled route than any other in William H. Russell (left), Alexander Majors
and William Bradford Waddell {right),
America at the time, but was exceeded members of the firm of Russell, Majors and
later by Ben Holladay and his Holladay Waddell. These men were primarily over-
Overland Mail Company which operated land freighters but went extensively into
west from the Missouri River.
the business of stage lines. They too were
to CLEAR UP the difference between the founders, owners and operators of the
famed Pony Express. The bronze plaque on
stage lines and express companies the the right is one of one hundred being
placed along the trail of the Pony Express.

OF STAGING

functioning of the stage line and services
of a stage line should be clarified. Wells Fargo's appointment as agent by Mr.
The stage line, whose name appeared Russell was not exclusive as the line had
on the letterboard over the stagecoach many agents. The ad {below) in New
door, carried passengers. It may or may York, July 1, 1861, illustrates that the fees
not have had a mail contract, and if it for carrying Pony Express letters were not
did, the panel under the door was gen- postal charges but express charges, col-
erally marked with Uncle Sam's eagle lected by the agent and transmi.tted to
the operators.
and the words "U. S.. Mail."
The stage lines also carried packages
for many express companies. If the stage
line were in an area served principally
by one express company, then the stage
may or may not have had lettered into
the panel beside the driver's seat the
words "Adams and Company Express"
or "Wells Fargo and Company Express."
But the fact that a stagecoach may
have carried express and/or mail does
not imply that the Government or the-
express company owned the stage line.
A simple corollary of this is the railroad
of yesterday and today.
The air line of today carries passen-
gers and it carries airmail for the Gov-
ernment under contract. It also carries
air express for the Railway Express
Agency. So the services performed by
the stage lines; the railroads and the
air lines are the same-passengers, mail
and express.
Like the stage lines, there were also
hundreds of early-day California express
companies, the greatest of which was the
Adams Express which was founded in Above is an advertisement of the Butter-
the East in 1839 and which moved into field Overland Mail after it was transferred
California in 1849 with the gold rush. from the southern to the central route,
Within three years it had a vast net- beginning July 1, 1861.
July-August, 1966 23