Besides these losses, which lessened his profits and threatened ruin, Holladay had to meet competition in his own trade, and detraction as well. Captain James L. Fiske, who had broken a new road through from Minnesota to Montana, came east in 1863, "by the 'overland stage,' travelling over the saline plains of Laramie and Colorado Territory and the sand deserts of Nebraska and Kansas. The country was strewed with the skeletons and carcases of cattle, and the graves of the early Mormon and California pilgrims lined the roadside. This is the worst emigrant route that I have ever travelled; much of the road is through deep sand, feed is very scanty, a great deal of the water is alkaline, and the snows in winter render it impassable for trains. The stage line is wretchedly managed. The company undertake to furnish travellers with meals, (at a dollar a meal,) but very frequently on arriving at a station there was nothing to eat, the supplies had not been sent on. On one occasion we fasted for thirty-six hours. The stages were sometimes in a miserable condition. We were put into a coach one night with only two boards left in the bottom. On remonstrating with the driver, we were told to hold on by the sides." At the close of the Civil War, however, Holladay controlled a monopoly in stage service between the Missouri River and Great Salt Lake. The express companies and railways met him at the ends of his link, but had to accept his terms for intermediate traffic. In the summer of 1865 a competing firm started a Butterfield's Overland Despatch to run on the Smoky Hill route to Denver. It soon found that Indian dangers here were greater than along the Platte, and it learned how near it was to bankruptcy when Holladay offered to buy it out in 1866. He had sent his agents over the rival line, and had in his hand a more detailed statement of resources and conditions than the Overland Despatch itself possessed. He purchased easily at his own price and so ended this danger of competition. Such was the character of the overland traffic that any day might bring a successful rival, or loss by accident. Holladay seems to have realized that the advantages secured by priority were over, and that the trade had seen its best day. In the end of 1866 he sold out his lines to the greatest of his competitors, Wells, Fargo, and Company. He sold out wisely. The new concern lost on its purchase through the rapid shortening of the route. During 1866 the Pacific railway had advanced so far that the end of the mail route was moved to Fort Kearney in November. By May, 1869, some years earlier than Wells, Fargo had estimated, the road was done. And on the completion of the Union and Central Pacific railways the great period of the overland mail was ended.