Another arrival of the late fifties was Manuel Ravenna, an Italian. He started a grocery store and continued the venture for some time; then he entered the saloon business on Main Street. Ravenna commissioned Wells Fargo & Company to bring by express the first ice shipped to Los Angeles for a commercial purpose, paying for it an initial price of twelve and a half cents per pound. The ice came packed in blankets; but the loss by melting, plus the expense of getting it here, made the real cost about twenty-four cents a pound. Nevertheless, it was a clever and profitable move, and brought Ravenna nearly all of the best trade in town. John Butterfield was originally a New York stage-driver and later the organizer of the American Express Company, as well as projector of the Morse telegraph line between New York and Buffalo. As the head of John Butterfield & Company, he was one of my customers in 1857. He contracted with the United States, in 1858, as President of the Overland Mail Company, to carry mail between San Francisco and the Missouri River. To make this possible, sections of the road, afterward popularly referred to as the Butterfield Route, were built; and the surveyors, Bishop and Beale, were awarded the contract for part of the work. It is my recollection that they used for this purpose some of the camels imported by the United States Government, and that these animals were in charge of Greek George to whom I have already referred. Butterfield chose a route from San Francisco coming down the Coast to Gilroy, San José and through the mountain passes; on to Visalia and Fort Tejón, and then to Los Angeles, in all some four hundred and sixty-two miles. From Los Angeles it ran eastward through El Monte, San Bernardino, Temécula and Warner's Ranch to Fort Yuma, and then by way of El Paso to St. Louis. In this manner, Butterfield arranged for what was undoubtedly the longest continuous stage-line ever established, the entire length being about two thousand, eight hundred and eighty miles. The Butterfield stages began running in September, 1858; and when the first one from the East reached Los Angeles on October 7th, just twenty days after it started, there was a great demonstration, accompanied by bon-fires and the firing of cannon. On this initial trip, just one passenger made the through journey--W. L. Ormsby, a reporter for the New York _Herald_. This stage reached San Francisco on October 10th, and there the accomplishment was the occasion, as we soon heard, of almost riotous enthusiasm.