 This was to be a regular scheduled route from Panama City, Nicaragua and Mexico to and from San Francisco and Oregon.Panama City was the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus of Panama trail across Panama.The Atlantic Ocean mail contract from East Coast cities and New Orleans to and from the mouth of the Chagres River in Isthmus of Panama was won by the United States Mail Steamship Company whose first paddle wheel steamship, the SS Falcon (1848) was dispatched on 1 December 1848 to the Caribbean (Atlantic) terminus of the Isthmus of Panama trail—the Chagres River.