overland mail
Americannoun
-
a government mail service, started in 1848, for sending mail from the Mississippi to the Far West.
-
(initial capital letters) a stagecoach line, established in 1858, linking Memphis, St. Louis, and San Francisco, which was then paid by the government to carry U.S. mail to the Far West. With various changes in ownership, name, and routes it continued until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Helped by his oldtime experience as an overland mail contractor.
From Time Magazine Archive
One, of veteran rangers, to select frontiersmen to stir up the Indians to attack the northern overland mail stations.
From The Little Lady of Lagunitas A Franco-Californian Romance by Richard Savage
We have no arrivals to-day, but are looking out anxiously for the overland mail from Battersea.
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, August 7, 1841 by Various
In 1858 it organized the great overland mail that ran coaches to California in less than twenty-five days.
From The New Nation by William E. Dodd
An overland mail was started from the busy town as early as 1849.
From The old Santa Fe trail The Story of a Great Highway by Buffalo Bill
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
