The Butterfield Overland Mail in Texas

In September 1858, the famed Butterfield Overland Mail initiated its southern route, part of which went through Texas. Its operations opened the world to families on the Texas frontier for a time.

Robert Plocheck

Fort Belknap in Young County received its first mail on the route in 1858.

Carrying mail, cargo and passengers, the vehicles, most of them Abbott-Downing Concord coaches, originated their routes at either Memphis or St. Louis, converged at Fort Smith, Ark., and entered Texas by way of Colbert's Ferry, eight miles below the village of Preston on the Red River, on their way to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The Butterfield's southern route grew out of a survey made in 1854 by Capt. John Pope for the War Department, which was seeking a Mississippi River-to-Pacific Ocean railroad route. Pope's recommended route generally followed Randolph Marcy's 1849 trail across Texas. It covered 2,700 miles, employed 100 drivers and several hundred other employees, operated 164 stations and used 1,800 horses and mules.

The stations were an average of 20 miles apart – the minimum distance was nine miles; the maximum was 60 miles. "Swing stations" supplied fresh teams of mules or horses; "home stations" provided meals for about 50 cents each. But the usual fare of hard tack, dried beef, coffee and dried beans prompted one newspaper reporter to advise his readers to take along ham, crackers and canned preserves.

If there was not a suitable building already available at the site of a proposed station, the company built one of adobe, logs or stone and furnished it with arms, ammunition and men to protect the isolated station from Indian attack.

Route of the Butterfield Stagecoaches

From Colbert's Ferry, the Butterfield line ran through the site of present-day Denison to Sherman, due to arrive on Sundays and Wednesdays at 12:30 a.m. The next stop was Diamond's station near the site of Whitesboro, then southwest to Gainesville and on to Davidson's station, six-and-a-half miles east of the Cooke-Montague county line. Conolly's station in Wise County followed, then Earheart's in Jack County, 200 yards west of the Wise-Jack county line on the west bank of Big Creek in a location called Hog-Eye Prairie.

Jacksboro, on the north bank of Lost Creek, was the next stop. A Butterfield passenger in September 1858 wrote that Jacksboro, "though a year old, contains a dozen houses, and I should judge nearly two hundred inhabitants. It is on the edge of a large plain, which as we approached it, looked like a passive lake, so even and level was its surface."

Murphy's station was next, 16 miles west in Young County, about four-and-a-half miles south of present-day Loving. Fort Belknap, also in Young County, received its first westbound mail on Sept. 22, 1858. At that time, there were about 150 civilians in Fort Belknap, and the town contained houses, several stores, a post office and a billiard saloon. The military post was occupied by two companies of 2nd Cavalry at the time.

Westbound mails were scheduled to arrive at Belknap on Mondays and Thursdays at 9 a.m., eastbound on Thursdays and Mondays at 11:30 a.m. From the western Texas frontier across the desert Southwest, the Indians would steal or run off the horses faster than they could be resupplied. So from Fort Belknap to Fort Yuma, Calif., mules pulled the Butterfield coaches. However, not even mules were safe: Comanches might not consider them worth riding, but mule meat was haute cuisine to them. In the fall and winter of 1858-59 alone, Indians stole about 220 head of horses and mules. But, contrary to Hollywood hype, the Indians seldom attacked the coaches themselves.

The Overland Mail's southern route proceeded across the Young-Throckmorton county line about three miles north of Murray to Franz's station, manned by James Madison Franz, where passengers were served meals cooked over an open fire. The next stop was Clear Fork of the Brazos station on the east bank of the Clear Fork a short distance above its confluence with Lambshead Creek. Clear Fork Station was about eight crow's-flight miles southeast of Camp Cooper.

Smith's was next, on the east bank of Chimney Creek, 26 miles from the Clear Fork site, then Fort Phantom Hill, or its ruins, on the east side of the Clear Fork, about 10 miles north of present-day Abilene. The route then continued southwest to Mountain Pass station, about 11 miles due south of Merkel, proceeded to the Valley Creek swing station, on the east bank of Valley Creek, about one mile northwest of present-day Shep, and to Fort Chadbourne on the east bank of Oak Creek. The westbound Butterfield coaches were scheduled to arrive at Chadbourne on Tuesdays and Fridays at 3:15 p.m., and the eastbound on Wednesdays and Sundays at 5:15 a.m.

The Colorado River station was next, on the north bank of the Colorado, probably between present-day Robert Lee and Bronte. Thirteen miles southwest of the Colorado River station was the Grape Creek station, situated on the east bank of the east branch of Grape Creek.

The route crossed the North Concho River at what became known as the Butterfield Crossing and stopped next at Johnson's Station, a home station 26 miles southwest of Grape Creek. On the north bank of the Middle Concho River 10 miles west of Kiowa Creek was the Head of Concho station, which had the last dependable water supply on the westward trip until the Pecos River, 75 miles away. From there the trail went down through Castle Gap in Upton County and southwest to the Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos station, then proceeded across far West Texas to exit the state at Franklin City, now El Paso, and on across the southwestern states to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Operations Brief, But Welcome

The Butterfield Overland Mail used this southern route only until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, but for the short time it operated, it was a great boon to the frontier families in Texas. It brought more frequent and dependable mail and freight service, it brought visitors and it brought news of the rest of the world, both in newspapers and through the oral accounts of the passengers.

The information flow operated outbound also, as newspapers in Fort Smith, Saint Louis, Memphis, San Francisco and other large cities along the route regularly carried news of Concho station, Fort Chadbourne, Phantom Hill, Belknap and Jacksboro.

So welcome in Texas were the Butterfield coaches that several inducements were offered in the northern part of the line to encourage its operation: Grayson County officials built bridges across streams; Jack County laid out a road from Jacksboro toward Gainesville so the coaches would follow a route through the county seat; and Colbert's Ferry transported the Butterfield coaches across the Red River free.

The gestures paid off. Wise, Jack and Young counties all gained population in the years that the Butterfield coaches served their towns, evidently because of the availability of stage and mail service and through news of western Texas printed in the newspapers along the eastern stretches of the route.

End of Southern Route

The splendid experiment came to an end when Texas seceded from the Union. With the withdrawal of federal troops came increased risk of Indian harassment on the southern route, and stores of Butterfield hay near Camp Cooper and Fort Belknap were seized by local posses, leaving no feed for the horses and mules.

Late in the war, there were wishful rumors on the frontier that Butterfield stage service was going to resume, but it never did. The last eastbound coach through Fort Chadbourne on March 12, 1861, found the fort in Confederate hands.

— Written by Mary G. Ramos and first published in the 1990-1991 Texas Almanac.