RUSSELL, MAJORS, AND WADDELL: Frontier Freighters

The new contract would net huge profits, but required a large outlay of money up front. None of the freight companies in the region could come up with that much cash.

So Russell and Waddell merged with Majors. On March 27, 1855, the new firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell signed a contract with the government to freight supplies for two years. It was the largest freighting contract in history at the time.

A month later, they relocated in Leavenworth. The company invested $400,000 in offices, warehouses, blacksmith and wagon shop and a store for their employees. From 1855 to 1857, they turned huge profits. They'd never suffered serious losses, but their luck was about to run out.

Their government contract in June 1857 required the company to haul three million pounds of supplies to Utah--an amount over that agreed upon in their contract. It was risky but they signed anyway.

In the Utah Territory, Mormons attacked the huge caravan. The company's loss of $494,762.61 exceeded two years' worth of profits.

The firm scrambled to attain credit and signed contracts with the government that would run into 1859. Adding to their misfortune, the growth of Leavenworth crowded their huge enterprise.

In agreement with the government, the freighting firm moved its headquarters one hundred seventy miles north of Leavenworth to Nebraska City.

Though the company freighted supplies to the western forts and to Santa Fe, they continued to sink into debt. Russell's misuse of bonds led to his arrest. In 1862, the most prosperous freighting company in the west was bankrupt.

Source/Suggested Reading

The Great West by David Lavender

The Expressmen by the Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS

Entrepreneurs of the Old West by David Dary

Go To Page: 1 2