Volume 14 , Issue 15

Butterfield Overland Trail

Remembering the Butterfield Overland Trail, the longest stagecoach route from Tipton, Missouri to San Francisco, California of yesterday. The route took passengers and mail from Tipton, Missouri through Arkansas and then turning west to end in San Francisco.

In 1857 Congress voted to subsidize a semi-weekly overland mail service. The line was to run "from such point of the Mississippi River as the contractors may select, to San Francisco." Further, this service was to be performed with "good four horse coaches or spring wagons suitable for the conveyance of passengers, as well as the safety and security of the mails." And the distance each way had to be traveled in twenty-five days or less.

This trail passed through Arkansas and the current day cities of Fayetteville, Hogeye, Strickler, Van Buren and Fort Smith. In Fayetteville the stagecoach was changed from a horse drawn to one pulled with a team of 4 mules, because of the rugged, tough terrain through the Boston mountains. Part of this trail resides in the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas. It comes within 2 miles of the renowned Butterfield Hiking Trail in "Eveil's Den state park."

John Butterfield, who had been a stage driver for some eastern stagelines, and had started the American Express company, bid successfully for the six-year contract. Butterfield was born in New York in 1801, he had received little formal education; he had gone into staging, becoming a driver while still in his early teens. Through hard work and ability he had risen to ownership of several lines in New York. The famous Butterfield Overland Express Company carried the mail from St. Louis, following a southerly route through Texas and Arizona and then up the California Coastline to San Francisco.

The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail was a stagecoach route in the US, operating from 1857 to 1861. It was a conduit for the US mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri, meeting Fort Smith. Arkansas, and continuing through Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, ending in San Francisco, California. It was 3 March 1857, when Congress under James Buchanan authorized the US Postmaster general, Aaron Brown to contract for delivery of the US mail from St. Louis, Missouri to San Francisco. Before this, any US mail bound for western localities was transported by ship across the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, where it was freighted across the small country to the Pacific and put back on a ship which then departed for points in California.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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