A classic first-hand account of a historic overland journey. Waterman L. Ormsby was a reporter who, in 1858, crossed the western states as the sole and first through-passenger of the Butterfield Overland Mail stage on its first trip from St. Louis to San Francisco. Ormsby's reports, which promptly appeared in the New York Herald, are lively and exciting. He describes the journey in great detail, giving full account of the conveyances, the accommodations, the other passengers, the country through which they passed, the dangers to which they were exposed, and the constant necessity for speed. Serving as a frontispiece is a fold-out copy of the earliest known through timetable of the Overland Mail Company.