Guadalupe Mountains National Park 325 Chapter 38 The Butterfield Overland Stagecoach through Guadalupe Pass JIM W. ADAMS is an American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) certi- fied petroleum geologist in Midland, Texas. He worked as a geological advisor for Exxon, U.S.A. for 43 years. The Mexican War ended with the they authorized an overland mail con - United States purchasing large tracts of tract. They made the mistake of leaving land in what is now the southwestern the choice of the route up to the post - part of the United States. The war also master general. Well, it so happened that settled the right of Texas to enter the the postmaster general was from the Union and, just two years after that, gold South, and he insisted on a southern was discovered in California. So many route. people rushed to California just two years later and in 1850 California joined At about that same time, an interesting the Union. It’s hard for me to realize that character by the name of John this happened 26 years before Colorado Butterfield came on the scene. His home had enough people to join the Union. At was in Utica, New York, and as a boy the any rate, there was a great clamor in con - sound of the stagecoach as it roared by gress and in the East and West both, es- in a cloud of dust thrilled him. He deter- pecially the West, for an overland mail mined that when he grew up he wanted service, an overland mail contract, and to be a stagecoach driver, and he did. He an overland stagecoach. As usual, con - was so good at it that he was soon made gress did nothing and then finally in 1857 manager of the line and he branched out Figure 1. Butterfield overland mail and pony express route. 326 Adams Figure 2. The Butterfield “Celerity” stage wagon was designed in the coach factory of James Goold in Albany, New York, where, in 1857, 100 of these wagons were built and placed in the overland service in 1858. They were more adaptable to the roughness of mountain and desert country than the regular high bodied coach. The seats were not upholstered but were constructed so that the backs could be lowered to make a bed, permitting the passengers to take turns sleeping at night. This type of vehicle was used exclusively between Springfield, Missouri; or Fort Smith Arkansas; and Los Angeles, California. Drawing by R. P. Conkling. to form stagecoach lines of his own, three different makers. One particular which he later converted into railroads. manufacturer from Albany, New York By then he was wealthy. He invested made the Celerity Wagon. Butterfield heavily in real estate and in steam ships thought that the design with the front on Lake Erie. As a staunch Yankee, wheels smaller than the rear wheels Butterfield submitted a bid for the would be much better in the Rocky northern route of the overland mail to Mountain West, and it was. commence from the railhead of Saint Jo - seph, Missouri. The route would go up Several years earlier Butterfield had into Nebraska, Wyoming, Salt Lake City, joined with two other New York State across Nevada and across the scenic Si- express owners, Henry Wells and Will- erra Nevada into Sacramento, with the iam Fargo, to form the American Ex- mail going on down by steamboat to San press company. He remained the direc- Francisco. But as a practical stagecoach tor and vice president of that firm until man, he realized that the heavy snows of the day he died, and that firm is still alive the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Ne - and kicking today. Nobody thought vada would be formidable barriers to Butterfield could meet the stiff mail con - any efficient schedule for the mail, and a tract of two stagecoaches per week with more practical route lay to the south. a maximum travel time of 25 days be- Butterfield made a very shrewd sugges- tween Saint Louis and San Francisco. tion of two routes: one starting at Saint They accused him of stock throwing. Louis and the other one starting at Why, that was an average of 112 miles a Memphis, and the two routes joining at day. Existing lines were only making 25 Fort Smith, Arkansas, then going miles a day. He simply had heard the through Indian Territory across Texas post horn again and could not resist this and what was later New Mexico, Ari- biggest challenge of his life, because he zona, and California. He won the was already wealthy and really did not $600,000 a year mail contract and he or- need that job. Those who scoffed at the ganized the overland mail company with project did not count on the hard- work - a capital stock of $2 million. He spent $1 ing genius of John Butterfield. He never million of that the very first year on took a day of vacation in his life. He equipment and supplies. One thing he pored over the reports of boundary did was purchase stagecoaches from commissioner Bartlett and Army Cap - Guadalupe Mountains National Park 327 tains Marcy and Pope. The existing mail sengers from Saint Louis westward to line from San Antonio to San Diego over the rail’s end at Tipton, Missouri. John the Jim Burch line was a very haphazard Butterfield and Waterman Ormsby were affair. One or two wagons a month plod- two of the passengers. Since the project ded along and stopped each night for the was bound to fail, nobody saw them off. passengers to cook their own meals and The first stagecoach driver was his son, bed down on the ground. Well, that just John J. Butterfield, Jr., and he drove the was not the way John Butterfield oper- stagecoach all the way to Fort Smith, Ar- ated. He built stagecoach stations all kansas, except when the old man him- along the route. He put his coaches on a self took over the reins. Parent schedule. The meals were ready for the Butterfield disembarked the first stage - passengers when they arrived, and he coach at Fort Smith, and that’s as far only allowed 20 minutes for meals and west as he ever got. The first stage went less for a change of horses. He also put through Indian Territory and crossed the lanterns on his coaches so that his stage - Red River into the northeast corner of coaches rolled both day and night. But Texas at Colbert’s Forge. They went what a task—almost 3,000 miles of through the tiny hamlets of Gainesville mostly unimproved trail through hostile and Sherman and they went on to Fort Indian country! Postmaster General Belknap and Fort Phantom Hill. Both of Brown called this the longest stagecoach these posts had been abandoned by the line in the world. It was actually 2,795 Army, but Butterfield went into the ruins miles long. There were only three cities and built stagecoach stations in both of along the entire route. Franklin, which them. From Fort Phantom Hill they we know as El Paso, Tucson, and a small went through Buffalo Gap, 11 miles north town of 6,000 people called Los Ange - of Abilene, and they came to Fort les. He built 139 way stations along this Chadburn. This first Butterfield stage - route. That was expanded later to 150. coach trek was ignored by the eastern His son, Daniel Adams Butterfield, drew United States, but in every fort and town up a schedule between these stations. in the West that it came through, it set Old John had a photographic memory off riotous demonstrations. The arrival and his associates were inspired by his of the first westbound mail in Fort enthusiasm. He could tell you the sched- Chadburn was an occasion for celebra- ule and the mileage between any of tion on the part of the drivers, and those stations, though he never saw Ormsby said they appeared to have been most of them. having a jolly good time for a long time before we got there. Any excuse, you Our knowledge of the Butterfield stage know. comes from two chief sources. First, the New York Herald was the only newspa- Indians, having raided the corrals a few per that thought the event was important days earlier, left only wild unbroken enough to send a 23-year- old cub re - mules. When they hitched the wagon to porter with the interesting name of these wild mules, they dashed off in a Waterman Lily Ormsby along on the first mad plunge through the trees where the stagecoach west. His interesting narra- top of the wagon with its canvas cover- tive was published in serial form as it was ing was completely demolished. This received. Second some 70 years later threw Ormsby out of the stagecoach and when Roscoe Conklin retired from the he almost refused to go any further, but Army in El Paso, he and his wife drove he did so, saying, “If I had any property, along the entire 3,000 mile route three I certainly would have made out a hasty times, documenting both the route and will.” They then crossed the Colorado the preservation of the stations, and River [of Texas] and ruts can still be seen their three-volume report is an invalu- there where the Butterfield stages able contribution. crossed. The adobe station there fed him a breakfast of mesquite beans and pork. On September 14, 1858, a coach started I thought mesquite beans in September out from San Francisco and two days were hard as a rock, but that’s what they later the train took the mail and five pas- apparently had.