Pacific Railroad Convention, San Francisco, printed oval corner card on circa 1860 cover to Georgetown Mass. bearing 1857, 10¢ green tied by "San Francisco, Jan 20" cds, top edge and flap mended, F.-V.F. appearance. Estimate  $150 - 200. The furor over the slavery issue decisively impacted the ultimate decision for the route of the transcontinental railroad to the Pacific Coast. In the late 1850s three routes had been proposed: a Northern Route from St. Paul to Portland; a Central Route from Sacramento to Council Bluffs; a Southern Route that followed the Butterfield Overland Mail Route. The Central Route was ultimately chosen when the Butterfield Route was closed because of the Civil War.Theodore Judah was a civil engineer who actively promoted the Central Route and who later organized the Central Pacific Railroad, which became the western portion of the Union Pacific. He had gone to California to lay out the Sacramento to Folsom line, which opened in 1855. In the course of this work he became convinced that a central route via Salt Lake City and through the Platt River Valley was the only commercially viable one. He convinced the California legislature to favor this route, and in 1859 it called a State Convention on the Pacific Railroad to consider how it might be built. Judah was appointed agent of the Convention to carry a petition to Congress for federal aid. His activities in Washington was the catalyst which led to the adoption of the Central Route and its funding by that body when the Civil War began. $0 (Image)