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The Overland Trail (also known as the Overland Stage Line) was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails through central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay to run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah, via stagecoaches in the early 1860s. Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until 1869 when the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad eliminated the need for mail service via Thais' stagecoach. == History == In 1857, the United States Post Office Department extended bids for mail service along what became known as the "southern route" from Memphis, Tennessee, to San Francisco, California, through New Mexico and Arizona. The contract was given to the Butterfield Overland Mail Company and service ran until the Civil War started in 1861. Wells Fargo was the primary lender to the company and took control when it suffered financial difficulties in 1859. After the southern route was disbanded, the Overland Mail Company moved its operations to the central line between Salt Lake City and Sacramento. The Chorpenning contract was annulled in 1860 and was subsequently awarded to the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company (C.O.C and P.P Express), which ran stage lines between Missouri and Utah along the Oregon Trail. In 1860, the C.O.C and P.P Express started the Pony Express, which followed the Oregon and Mormon Trails to Salt Lake City and the Central Nevada Route to Sacramento. The Pony Express only lasted a year before the C.O.C and P.P Express went bankrupt and the assets were sold to Ben Holladay. In 1861, Holladay was awarded the Postal Department contract for overland mail service between the end of the western terminus of the railroad in Missouri and Kansas and Salt Lake City. Service from Utah to California was given to the Overland Mail Company and other stage lines. The start of the Civil War also forced the United States Army to move its regular soldiers from forts and outposts along the Oregon Trail to the east and replace them with volunteers. As a result, Native American raids on the trail intensified. The Army and Holladay wanted to find a safer route to the south. In 1851, Army Topographical Engineer Captain Howard Stansbury, returning east from an expedition to the Salt Lake Valley, described a route from Fort Bridger via the Bitter Creek valley and Laramie Plains to the North Platte River. Stansbury's route was well known by local trappers and traders. General William Henry Ashley had crossed the Laramie Plains in 1825, John C. Fremont camped near Elk Mountain in 1843 and miners and trappers heading to California used the Cherokee Trail in the late 1840s. Based on these reports, the new trail was established from Atchison, Kansas, ascending the South Platte River and striking the Cherokee Trail though Wyoming to Fort Bridger. Mail service started along the Overland Stage Route on July 1, 1861. Holladay retained the mail contract on the route until 1866, when it was sold to Wells Fargo. Stage operations continued until 1869, when the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad made stage service unnecessary. Over time, increasing emigrant traffic and homesteading in the plains and shifting buffalo herds forced Native American tribes into southern Wyoming and northern Colorado, leading to conflicts on the Overland Trail, especially in the eastern portion along the South Platte River and in the western portion along the Laramie Plains. Attempts to force the Native Americans onto a reservation came to a head during the Colorado War in 1864. Camp Collins, near present day Fort Collins, Colorado, and Fort Sanders and Fort Halleck in Wyoming were established to protect travelers against Sioux raids on the trail during the 1860s. Stagecoach stations and ranches along of the South Platte River were burned down by an army of Cheyenne, Arapaho. and Sioux in January and early February 1865. (See Battle of Julesburg.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Overland Trail」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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