Butterfield Overland Mail

The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail, also known as the Oxbow Route, the Butterfield Overland Stage, or the Butterfield Stage, was a stagecoach route in the United States, operating from 1857 to 1861. It was a conduit for the United States 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.^[1]

Origins

Guadalupe Peak summit, with a pyramid commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Butterfield Overland Mail.

The stage was an early operation of American Express and Wells Fargo.

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. 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.^[2]

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 route^[2], known as the Oxbow Route,

"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."^[3]

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.^[2] At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US.^{[citation needed]}

Route

The contract with the postal service, which went into effect on September 16, 1858, identified the route and divided it into nine divisions numbered west to east from San Francisco.^{[citation needed]}

Division[4]	Route	Miles	Hours
1	San Francisco to Los Angeles	462	80
2	Los Angeles to Fort Yuma	282	72.20
3	Fort Yuma to Tucson	280	71.45
4	Tucson to Franklin	360	82
5	Franklin[5] to Fort Chadbourne	458	126.30
6	Fort Chadbourne to Colbert's Ferry	282½	65.25
7	Colbert's Ferry to Fort Smith (Indian Territory)	192	38
8	Fort Smith to Tipton	318½	48.55
9	Tipton to St. Louis (Pacific Railroad)	160	11.40
	Totals	2,795	596.35

Operation

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company held the U.S. Mail contract from September 16, 1857 on a six year contract.^[2] Service was to actually start on September 15, 1858.^[2] 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.^[2] The scheduled time between the two points was 25 days.^[2]

The western fare one way was $200 with most stages arriving 22 days later at their final destination.^{[citation needed]}

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.

Butterfield's assets as well as those of the Pony Express were to wind up with the Wells Fargo partners.^{[citation needed]}

A correspondent for the New York Herald, Waterman Ormsby, remarked after his 2,812-mile (4,525 km) trek through the western US 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."^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

Route discontinued

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.^[6]

Under the Confederate States of America, the Butterfield route operated with limited success from 1861 until early 1862 using former Butterfield employees.^{[citation needed]} Wells Fargo continued its stagecoach runs to mining camps in more northern locations until the coming of the US Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Three battles of the American Civil War occurred on or near Butterfield mail posts, the Battle of Stanwix Station, the Battle of Picacho Pass and the Battle of Apache Pass. Confederates destroyed stations to keep them from northern hands.^{[citation needed]} All said engagement happenened in the Arizona sector of the mail route.

Modern remnants

The only surviving station building is Oak Grove Butterfield Stage Station, near Warner Springs in San Diego County, California.^[7] 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, a stop for emigrant travelers to the West from 1849-1861, has two original adobe buildings on the 221-acre property. The 1849 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.

The remains of the Butterfield station at Apache Pass, Arizona.

When it was first established, the route proceeded due east from Franklin, Texas, toward the Hueco Tanks^[8]; 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.

References

Bibliography

• Richardson, Rupert N. Butterfield Overland Mail from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved 2006-08-22.
• Root, Frank. The Overland Stage to California. Topeka, Kansas: W.Y. Morgan, 1901.[1]
• Wright, Muriel H. "Historic Places on the Old Stage Line from Fort Smith to Red River-Appendix A", Chronicles of Oklahoma 11:2 (June 1933) 821-822 (accessed August 16, 2006).
• Hafen, L. R. R. (2004). The overland mail, 1849-1869: promoter of settlement precursor of railroads. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Butterfield, J., Fargo, W. G., & Holland, A. (1857). Letter to the postmaster general in relations to the overland mail to California.
• Butterfield, J. W. (1857). Skeleton map of the overland mail route to California. Route adopted by the department traced in green. Route proposed by John Butterfield and others (who were the lowest bidders) in red.
• Overland Mail Company, & Butterfield, J. (1858). Overland Mail Company: through time schedule between St. Louis, Mo., Memphis, Tenn. & San Francisco, Cal. [S.l: The Company?.
• Reed, M., & Pourade, R. F. (1966). The colorful Butterfield Overland Stage. Reproductions in color of 20 paintings by Marjorie Reed from the collection of James S. Copley. Palm Desert, Calif: Best-West Publications.