First Mail West: Stagecoach Lines on the Santa Fe Trail - Softcover

Taylor, Morris F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826321038 ISBN 13: 9780826321039

Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr, 2000

Synopsis

First published in 1971 and now reissued in paperback for the first time, First Mail West recounts the colorful history of stagecoach lines on the Santa Fe Trail during the height of overland traffic from 1850 to 1879. Desert, rain, snow, wind, outlaws, Indians, buffalo stampedes, and business competitors challenged, and sometimes scuttled, the operation of stage lines between Missouri and New Mexico. The author describes the topography, roads, rolling stock, stations, accommodations, and natural and human dangers along the trail, and analyzes the fierce competition between independent lines for passenger traffic and federal mail contracts.

About this title

About the Author:

Morris F. Taylor (1915-1979) was professor of history and chairman of the Division of Social Studies at Trinidad State Junior College, Trinidad, Colorado. Mark L. Gardner, an independent historian, lives in Cascade, Colorado. He is the author of Wagons for the Santa Fe Trade: Wheeled Vehicles and Their Makers, 1822-1880 (UNM Press).

Review:

"A substantial contribution to the history of the American Southwest." -- LeRoy R. Hafen, Western Historical Quarterly

"An invaluable source of information." -- W. Turrentine Jackson, New Mexico Historical Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0826321038
• ISBN 13: 9780826321039
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 253