The Allan Goldberg Collection of United States Postal History continued...

VERY FINE. AN EXTREMELY RARE COVER ROUTED VIA THE ISTHMUS OF TEHUANTEPEC.

As endorsed, this cover was intended to travel to California by the Gulf of Mexico route from New Orleans to San Francisco via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. This route was operated by the Louisiana Tehuantepec Company, which ran a semi-monthly mail and passenger service. According to the Pony Express: Historic Resource Study website (http://www.nps.gov/archive/poex/hrs/hrs1b.htm): "...it began in October 1858, under contract to the Louisiana Tehuantepec Company. Starting from New Orleans, a Concord coach carried mail and passengers to Minatitlan on the east coast of Mexico. From there, the route crossed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Pacific Coast. Mail and passengers were then transferred to steamships going to San Francisco. The new overland ocean service from New Orleans to San Francisco took approximately fifteen to eighteen days one way. The accomplishment of the new company clearly presented itself as a shorter and faster alternative to all previous ocean and overland mail routes." Despite its advantages, the Louisiana Tehuantepec Company's mail contract was not renewed by the Postmaster General in 1859.

The addressee, Liberty C. Bartlett, was the son of a judge in Little Rock Ark. He joined the Confederate Army in 1861 and was killed at the Battle of Shiloh (http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/f/e/n/K-Fenton/F ILE/0048page.html)

Ex Kutz (Image)