Butterfield Overland Stage Co

• American

• American West

In 1857, Congress granted transportation entrepreneur John Butterfield the contract to build a transcontinental mail route linking the Mississippi River to the growing settlements of the Far West. Launched in 1858, the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach followed a sweeping southern arc — through Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and up into California — earning the nickname Oxbow Route. Its southern course allowed coaches to run year?round, carrying passengers, freight, and mail across roughly 2,800 miles in under 25 days. Though the line operated for less than three years before the Civil War disrupted service, the Butterfield route helped bind the expanding United States, replacing slower Panama-crossing mail and establishing one of the earliest overland links between the Midwest and the Pacific Coast. - AsNotedIn