The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail [1] was a stagecoach route in the United States, operating from 1857 to 1861. It was a conduit for the U.S. mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri, meeting Fort Smith, Arkansas, and continuing through Indian Territory, New Mexico, and Arizona, ending in San Francisco, California.[2] On March 3, 1857, Congress under James Buchanan authorized the U.S. postmaster general, Aaron Brown to contract for delivery of the U.S. mail from Saint Louis, Missouri to San Francisco, California. Prior to this advent any U.S. 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. [3]
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Through the 1840s and 1850s there was a desire for better communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Though there were several proposals for railroads connecting the two coasts a more immediate realization was an overland mail route across the west. Congress authorized the Postmaster General to contract for mail service from Missouri to California as a means of facilitating more settlement in the west overall. [4] The Post Office Department advertised for bids for an overland mail service on April 20, 1857. Bidders were to propose routes from the Mississippi River westward. [5]
John W. Butterfield and his associates William B. Dinsmore, William G. Fargo, James V. P. Gardner, Marcus L. Kinyon, Alexander Holland, and Hamilton Spencer created a proposal for a southern route beginning in St. Louis and heading west to California. The Post Office Department received nine bids in all. The Postmaster-general, Brown, was from Tennessee and favored a southern route. Although none of the bidders had provided for the route, the Postmaster-general advocated a southerly route, [5] known as the Oxbow Route, with the idea that it could remain in operation during the winter months. [3]
"from St. Louis, Missouri, and from Memphis Tennessee, converging at Little Rock, Arkansas; thence, via Preston, Texas, or as nearly so as may be found advisable, to the best point of crossing the Rio Grande, above El Paso and not far from Fort Fillmore; thence along the new road being opened and constructed under direction of the Secretary of the Interior, to Fort Yuma, California; thence, through the best passes and along the best valleys for safe and expeditious staging, to San Francisco." [6]
This route was an extra 600 miles (970 km) longer than the central and northern routes running through Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah, but was snow free. The bid and route was awarded to Butterfield and his associates, for semi-weekly mail at $600,000 per year.[5] At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US.
The stage routes from a Butterfield Overland Mail Company map.]] The contract with the U.S. Post Office, which went into effect on September 16, 1858, identified the route and divided it into eastern and western divisions. Franklin, Texas later to be named El Paso was the dividing point and these two were subdivided into minor divisions, five in the East and four in the West. These minor divisions were numbered west to east from San Francisco, each under the direction of a superintendent. [3]
| Division[7] | Route | Miles | Hours |
| Division 1 | San Francisco to Los Angeles | 462 | 80 |
| Division 2 | Los Angeles to Fort Yuma | 282 | 72.20 |
| Division 3 | Fort Yuma to Tucson | 280 | 71.45 |
| Division 4 | Tucson to Franklin | 360 | 82 |
| Division 5 | Franklin[8] to Fort Chadbourne | 458 | 126.30 |
| Division 6 | Fort Chadbourne to Colbert's Ferry | 282½ | 65.25 |
| Division 7 | Colbert's Ferry to Fort Smith | 192 | 38 |
| Division 8 | Fort Smith to Tipton | 318½ | 48.55 |
| Division 9 | Tipton to St. Louis | 160 | 11.40 |
| Totals | 2,795 | 596.35 |
The Butterfield Overland Mail Company held the U.S. Mail contract from September 15, 1857 on a six year contract. [5] On that date stages departed from St. Louis and San Francisco for the first time. The stage from San Francisco arrived in St. Louis 23 days and 4 hours later with the mail and six passengers.[5] The scheduled time between the two points was 25 days. [5]
The Overland Mail made two trips a week over a period of 2-1/2 years. Each Monday and Thursday morning the stagecoach would leave Tipton and San Francisco on their cross continent, carrying passengers, freight and up to 12,000 letters. The western fare one-way was $200, with most stages arriving at their final destination 22 days later. The Butterfield Overland Stage Company had more than 800 people in its employ, had 139 relay stations, 1800 head of stock and 250 Concord Stagecoaches in service at one time. [9]
During the 1860s there were few routes westward and the Overland Stagecoach Route was one of the primary routes and had to be kept open for settlers, miners and businessmen traveling west. Because the Overland Stagecoach route was being harassed by bandits and Indians, Lincoln's War Department responded by assigning a detachment from the 9th Kansas Cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel William O. Collins from Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory. Collins' detachment guarded the route between Independence, Missouri and Sacramento, California. [10]
With the American Civil War looming, the competing Pony Express was formed in 1860 to deliver mail faster and on a central/northern route away from the volatile southern route. The Pony Express was to succeed in delivering the mail in 10 days. But the Pony Express failed to win the mail contract.
In March 1860, the Overland Stage Company was taken over because of the debt owed to Wells Fargo and as a result John Butterfield was forced out of the business. Butterfield's assets as well as those of the Pony Express were to wind up with the Wells Fargo partners. [9]
A correspondent for the New York Herald, Waterman Ormsby, remarked after his 2,812-mile (4,525 km) trek through the western United States to San Francisco on a Butterfield Stagecoach thus: "Had I not just come out over the route, I would be perfectly willing to go back, but I now know what Hell is like. I've just had 24 days of it."[2] Ormsby was the only passenger on the first East-West run of the Butterfield Stage who journeyed the entire distance of the mail route. He sent periodic dispatches to the paper describing his journey. [11]
Employing over 800 at its peak, it used 250 Concord Stagecoaches and 1800 head of stock, horses and mules and 139 relay stations or frontier forts in its heyday. The last Oxbow Route run was made March 21, 1861 at the time of the outbreak of the Civil War. The Civil War started on April 12, 1861. [9]
An Act of Congress, approved March 2, 1861, discontinued this route and service ceased June 30, 1861. On the same date the central route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Placerville, California, went into effect. This new route was called the Central Overland California Route. [12]
In March 1861, before the American Civil War had actually begun at Fort Sumter, the United States Government formally revoked the contract of the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach Company in anticipation of the coming conflict. [13]
Under the Confederate States of America, the Butterfield route operated with limited success from 1861 until early 1862 using former Butterfield employees. Wells Fargo continued its stagecoach runs to mining camps in more northern locations until the coming of the US Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. At least four battles of the American Civil War and Apache Wars occurred at or near Butterfield mail posts, the Battle of Stanwix Station, the Battle of Picacho Pass the Battle of Apache Pass, and the Battle of Pea Ridge. Confederates attempted to keep the stations from Tucson to Mesilla open while they destroyed the stations from Tucson to Yuma which were used to supply the Union army as it advanced through Traditional Arizona. The burning of the Stanwix Station and others led to a significant delay to the Union advance, postponing the Fall of Tucson, Arizona's western Confederate capital, which housed one of two territorial courts; the other court was in Mesilla. All said engagements happened in the Arizona and Arkansas sectors of the mail route.
There are surviving Stage stations at Oak Grove and the most famous is near Warner Springs, California in San Diego County, California.[14] It and the property of Warner's Ranch 20 miles (32 km) away, where the ranch house was used as a station, were declared to be National Historic Landmarks in 1961. Warner's Ranch, was the Butterfield Station and a stop for emigrant travelers to the West from 1849–1861, has two original adobe buildings on the 221-acre (0.89 km2) property. The 1857 ranch house sometimes housed travelers.
The Elkhorn Tavern in the Pea Ridge National Military Park was another destination along the route that was rebuilt after the Civil War. It is on one of the last sections of the trail that still exists- Old Wire Road through Avoca, Rogers and Springdale, Arkansas. Also in Arkansas is the town of Pottsville, which was built around Pott's Inn. Pott's Inn was finished in 1859 and was a popular stop along the route. It survives as a museum owned by the Pope County Historic Society.
When it was first established, the route proceeded due east from Franklin, Texas, toward the Hueco Tanks;[15] the remains of a stagecoach stop are still visible at the Hueco Tanks State Historic Site.
The summit of Guadalupe Peak in Guadalupe Mountains National Park features a stainless steel pyramid erected in 1958 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Butterfield Overland Mail, which passed south of the mountain.