 This was to be a regular route from Panama, Nicaragua and Mexico to and from San Francisco and Oregon.The Atlantic Ocean mail contract from East Coast cities and New Orleans, Louisiana to and from the Chagres River in Panama was won by the United States Mail Steamship Company whose first steamship, the "SS Falcon (1848')" was dispatched on December 1, 1848.The SS California (1848), the first Pacific Mail Steamship Company steamship, showed up in San Francisco loaded with gold seekers on February 28, 1849 on its first trip from Panama and Mexico after steaming around Cape Horn from New York.