The Demise of Russell, Majors and Waddell

Congress never did subsidize a central Pony Express mail route, nor did it solve the financial problems of Russell, Majors and Waddell.  In fact, each letter delivered by Pony Express cost the firm $16 and made only a $3 return!  Russell appealed to his Washington friends for help in the fall of 1860.  The Interior Department clerk who controlled millions in bonds for the Indian tribes agreed to help.  Russell and the clerk entered into a conspiracy to embezzle funds in order to bail out Russell's firm.  It didn't go well.

By December of 1860, just a couple of months later, their scheme was discovered and the criminal activity was the talk of the town.  Russell was in jail and the firm was financially in ruin.  Had Russell resisted the temptation to engage in criminal activity, the subsidy might have been granted after all.

By 1861 the nation was looking at civil war and the old southern mail route was obsolete.  After Russell's disgrace, the subsidy was offered to John Butterfield's organization. and the operation was transferred northward.  Butterfield, however, was not the chief beneficiary of this development...that went to Ben Holladay, a hard driving, ruthless businessman who dreamed of a total monopoly of all western freight and coaching operations.

Next time...the ruthless emperor of the trail
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On September 7, 1813, the United States was first nicknamed Uncle Sam.  The name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the US Army during the War of 1812.  The barrels were stamped U.S. but soldiers began referring to the food as 'Uncle Sam's'.  The newspaper picked up the story and Uncle Sam eventually became accepted as the nickname for the U.S federal government.