CDV Dated 1863, Inscribed and Signed: BEN HOLLADAY, The Stagecoach King

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A very rare CDV belonging to "The Stagecoach King", Ben Halladay, dedicated to Mrs Torrance, and signed on August 18th, 1863. We have found that even photos of this man are not common, and we have not seen any other picture of him made on these years, when he was a relatively young man in his forties: all the photos we have seen of Mrl Holladay are in later years, when he was a much older person. So this CDV probably deserves the "rare" qualifier.Ben Halladay was the owner for some time of the Overland Trail, or Overland Stagecoach Trail, and one of the forces behind the creation of services like the Pony Express, that he owned for some time.He was also involved, as a victim, in the first known, well documented stagecoach assault by a gang of bandits. These robberies later became famous due to its many Hollywood depictions in movies.From Wikipedia:"Benjamin "Ben" Holladay (October 14, 1819 - July 8, 1887) was an American transportation businessman responsible for creating the Overland Stage to California during the height of the 1849 California Gold Rush. Ben Holladay created a stagecoach empire and he is known in history as the "Stagecoach King". A native of Kentucky , he also was hired as a private courier to General Alexander Doniphan of Missouri. Hi s transportation empire later included steamships and railroads in Oregon .And, related to the Overland Trail, the same source: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. [1]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. [2] 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 Rai... read more

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