Butterfield Overland Mail

Just before you reach “Dateland” on Interstate-8, there is a rest stop with a very interesting historical display.  Take a look at it if you ever travel this route and stop at the rest stop just before Dateland. Did you know that a stagecoach line followed the same route as I-8 follows today?  The line began in St. Louis and Memphis, traveled through Texas and Tucson and ended in Los Angeles and San Francisco during the years from 1857 through 1878 along the route we traveled the last two days.

In 1858, John Butterfield started and operated for three years until 1861 the most efficient of the companies involved in moving mail and people along this route.  Using what was then the top-of-the-line vehicle called a Concord Coach, Butterfield Overland could accommodate twenty-one people at a time in each coach pulled by four to six horses or mules.  Nine people could travel cross-country inside the coach on upholstered benches while twelve others could sit on top of the coach.  The driver and an express messenger would sit in the driver’s box.  Suspended on thick leather straps that absorbed the bumps, the coach provided a comfortable, rocking motion ride for the travelers.  At a cost of $1,500, each handcrafted coach weighed over a ton and stood eight feet high.  The coach lines were subsidized by the U.S. Government at $600,000 per year and were operated 24 hours per day.

The journey took 24 days and cost each traveler $200.  Traveling non-stop over very rough roads, the patrons would have been unable to sleep.  Meals were served and the menu consisted of venison, mule meat, salt pork, beans, coffee, dried chilies and mustard.  When they coach did stop, the travelers would take turns sleeping and standing watch over each other, the coach and horses.  The indigenous people were Apache and generally left the stagecoaches alone but the travelers still worried about attacks.  The travelers also had to endure unpredictable weather.  All of this is so different for those of us who traverse the same route today in our own coaches.  I am grateful for the comforts of home we carry with us.  The time frame we incurred during our trip comprised half the time and included eight hours of sleep nightly in an air-conditioned vehicle that includes a bathroom and kitchen!