The Butterfield Overland Mail

I am not a historian, never have been. My degree stops at the simple baccalaureate and the only dates I have memorized are those of my own unfortunate aging and the anniversaries of immediate kin. But I am a Texan, and as every good Texan knows there is a grit here, a grit which anchors us to the very land.

Before the internet, the telephone, the automobile, before the iron rails which connected east to west, the mail was an irregular thing. What takes the press of a button and a matter of seconds to send today, took weeks in the mid-1800’s. Of course, that assumes it was received at all, death and robbery often interfering. A letter from New York to California might be delivered via steamboat, or overland by stagecoach – the most notable of which was the Butterfield Overland Mail.

It took a year from contract signing to establish and outfit a line of stations across the country. Then finally, in September 1858, the first Overland Mail stagecoach departed St. Louis bound for San Francisco, with post and one passenger, a reporter for the New York Herald named Waterman Lily Ormsby. It was the budding of a new venture, combining the golden opportunity of the west with the spirit and drive of the new frontier.

Ride with me as I explore the Overland stagecoach route through Texas in the November issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine

Full story here: https://tpwmagazine.com/.../the-butterfield-overland.../

For more on Texas forts, and to plan your route, check out: https://texastimetravel.com/regions/forts-trail/