Butterfield Overland Mail

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail 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. 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.

Origins

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. 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.

John Warren Butterfield

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, known as theOxbow Route, with the idea that it could remain in operation during the winter months.

"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."

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. At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US.

Butterfield Overland Mail Route

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.

Division	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 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

Operation

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company held the U.S. Mail contract from September 15, 1857 on a six year contract. 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. The scheduled time between the two points was 25 days.

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.

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.

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.