Reading about Butterfield Stage

 Donna, my friend, spoke of reading and I thought I’d share this book with everyone.  I lived within a few blocks of one of the stopovers for the Butterfield Stage from 1972-1982.   The Butterfield company only ran this line a few years.  The purpose was to carry mail from the east coast to the west.  The stages could carry 9 passengers, but mainly they hauled mail.  They would not carry gold, valuables or cash.  Those riding couldn’t either.  No robbers were interested.  Most valuable thing was their mules or horses.  Each stage had a driver and an engineer riding shotgun.   The stage stopped every 10 miles.  Horses or mules were switched.  Passengers could go “pee”.  Often, men to the left bushes and women to the right.  At layover stations, like the one of Kirkbride Potts near where I lived, they stopped 45 minutes.  A meal was offered here for 40 cents.  If the road was muddy, passengers had to get out and walk sometimes for miles.  Mark Twain road the Butterfield from St. Louis to California and wrote of his wild adventure.  He carried a huge unabridged dictionary along on his lap as they flew down the road and around bends and dips his big book almost killed several of his fellow travelers.  The Butterfield route went south through Texas not through Utah and those mountain passes that would be snow covered in the winter.   

The book is interesting and informative. Butterfield's stage (celerity) wagon partly designed by John Butterfield. Sixty-six were employed from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Los Angeles, California.  They had an enclosed coach too.   If 9 passengers rode, 6 had to insert knees to those across from them and they were snug.  

The Route on the map below does not show Memphis to Little Rock.  The mail traveled from St. Louis to Fayetteville, too.  These routes converged and by the time the route entered Texas mail was everywhere on the coach.  Passengers had to hold their luggage at times.  Lots of pounds of mail were carried.  Mail was the object.  Passengers were just an extra.  

This the the Kirkbride house today.  Of, course it wasn’t this fine then.  Today it is a museum. The Potts Station was the only known scheduled stop between Little Rock and Fort Smith.  Extra barns were built on the premises to house horses and extra harnesses, etc., for the stagecoaches to change out when they stopped. People liked to stop at the Potts home, whether on the stage or just traveling through by buggy or horse.  

Mrs. Potts was well known for her clean beds and good food.  Of course, you could also get a bath.  The first person would pay the most for his/her bath and each person thereafter would pay a little less.  The last person would pay the least and have to empty the tub.  Just like in those days, the bathtub is once again in the kitchen.  It was easiest to keep it there so you wouldn't have to haul the heated water very far to put it in the tub.