At the beginning of the Civil War, military strength in the West declined, and stages carrying United States mail along the Oregon-California-Mormon Trail often could not be safeguarded. Early in 1862, Ben Holladay acquired the transcontinental stage business and the United States mail subsidy contract, named his company the Overland Stage Line, and soon abandoned the central trail. He chose a route farther south because it was safer, shorter, and closer to Denver, where economic growth followed the 1859 gold rush. Established earlier by trappers and explorers, this route became known as the Overland Trail. It split from the older Oregon Trail near North Platte, Nebraska, then paralleled the South Platte west through Colorado before turning north into southern Wyoming, where it ran along the Medicine Bow Range and then turned west again. After crossing plains, rivers, streams, and mountain passes, it entered the Green River Basin, followed Bitter Creek to its meeting with the Green River, and then branched north to rejoin the Oregon Trail near the junction of the Blacks Fork and Hams Fork rivers. From there it continued west and south toward Salt Lake City and eventually Placerville, California. Overland Trail transportation lasted seven years until 1869, when the Union Pacific Railroad replaced the transcontinental stage as the chief east-west transportation system, though emigrants and settlers continued using the trail until after the turn of the century.