Five miles southwesterly from this point, on both sides of Fresno Slough, stood Fresno City, which gradually arose at the head of navigation of Fresno Slough and existed from approximately 1855 to 1875. The town served as a station for the Butterfield Overland mail stages that carried the first overland mail on a regular schedule between St. Louis and San Francisco. Today there are no traces of Fresno City. In 1872, the current city of Fresno, later the county seat, was established about thirty miles to the southwest on the newly built Central Pacific Railroad.