Wells Fargo & Co./Denver City Col. (Colorado Territory) May 17, 1867, blue double oval handstamp (Leutzinger type 17-8) on 1864 3¢ pink entire with Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company printed frank (posthumous Wells Fargo use) to Saint Joseph, Missouri, entered the mails with "Salina, Kan., May 22" cds and duplexed target, thus carried from Denver by stage on the Smoky Hill Route to the Union Pacific Eastern Division (later Kansas Pacific) railroad terminus at Salina, edge tear at top, mended slit into the address at bottom, F.-V.F., a rare Wells Fargo usage, with photocopy of an 1867 Wells Fargo map showing the route. Estimate  $1,000 - 1,500. The Smoky Hill Route was pioneered in 1864 by Butterfield's Overland Despatch, a freighting and forwarding venture that ran between Denver and Leavenworth, Kansas. Butterfield's Despatch was acquired by the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company in March of 1866. The United States Express Company also operated on the Smoky Hill Route.Wells Fargo and Holladay along with the Overland Mail Company, which was controlled but not yet legally owned by Wells Fargo, were merged in a "Grand Consolidation" that was effective November 1, 1866. The new corporation retained the Wells Fargo name. The new Wells Fargo was a transportation enterprise as much as an express and banking business. As such, the new Wells Fargo was responsible for the entire Central Overland Route, which they began advertising as the "Great Overland Mail Route" with "Wells, Fargo & Co. Sole Proprietors." The United States Express Company, as allies of Wells Fargo, took charge of the Smoky Hill Route.An odd thing about Wells Fargo's "Great Overland Mail Route" was that it was disappearing incrementally as a consequence of the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. On the eastern end, the Union Pacific Western Division reached Julesburgh, Colorado Territory, in June of 1867. Through service between Cheyenne City, Dakota Territory (soon to be Wyoming Territory), and Omaha, Nebraska, was initiated in November of 1867. In the interim, Indian attacks and railroad breakdowns east of Omaha led Wells Fargo to occasionally send express on the United States Express Company's Smoky Hill Route as an alternative to the easternmost portion of their own Central Overland Route. $0 (Image)