In 1857, Congress awarded businessman and visionary John Butterfield a contract to establish an overland mail route between the eastern United States and growing populations on the West Coast. What became known as the Butterfield Overland Trail began from two eastern termini on the Mississippi River at St. Louis, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee, and followed a southerly course through Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before heading north through California to its western terminus in San Francisco. The trail’s arcing sweep across the southern rim of the country gave it another name: the Oxbow Route.

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Travel along the Oxbow Route was by stagecoach, which left twice a week carrying passengers, freight, and mail. Averaging 100 miles per day, drivers were able to deliver mail to San Francisco in 25 days or less. The stagecoach route lasted three years before more efficient forms of communication and more direct routes farther north replaced it.

The Butterfield Overland mail operation ceased to operate in the spring of 1861. However, it is remembered as a key component in the shaping of the United States and, its legacy as a mythic symbol of the American spirit and enterprise still continues today.

Source: NPS Trail Study News (January 2012)

Establishment Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail — January 5, 2023

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Butterfield Overland Mail Company Stagecoaches and Stage (Celerity) Wagons used on the Southern Trail 1858-1861 (©Gerald T. Ahnert, April 2013)

Butterfield Overland Trail National Historic Trail Special Resource Study (May 2018)

Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail Special Resource Study/Environmental Assessment Trail Study News (January 2012)

Butterfield Overland Trail Project: Temescal Valley Alignment Analysis (September 2015)

Butterfield Overland Trail Special Resource Study/Environmental Assessment Scoping Report (September 2012)

Butterfield Overland Trail Special Resource Study Press Release — Termination of Environmental Assessment (December 7, 2016)

Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail Map (c2012)

Butterfield's Overland Mail (L.R. Hafen, extract from California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 2 No. 3, 1923)

Committee Report: Butterfield Overland Mail (extract from The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 36 No. 4, Winter 1958-1959)

Designation of the Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail Public Law 117-345 136 Stat. 6196 (January 5, 2023)

Maps: Arizona • Arkansas • California-North • California-Central • California-South • Missouri • New Mexico • Texas-East • Texas-West • Texas & Oklahoma (c2012)

Marking the Butterfield: Retracing the Indian Territory Segment of the 1858-61 Butterfield Overland Mail Stagecoach Road (Susan Penn Dragoo, extract from The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 97 No. 1, Spring 2019)

National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form

Potts' Inn (Jack E. Porter, January 11, 1970)

Significance Statement: Butterfield Overland Trail (proposed National Historic Trail) (April 9, 2013)

Some Details of the Southern Overland mail (Rupert N. Richardson, extract from The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. XXIX No. 1, July 1925)

The Butterfield Overland Mail Company (Mary A. Helmich, 2008)

The Butterfield Overland Mail One Hundred Years Ago (Muriel H. Wright, extract from The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 35 No. 1, Spring 1957)

The Butterfield Overland Mail Road across Texas (J.W. Williams, extract from ,The Southwestern Historical Quarterly Vol. LXI No. 1, July 1957)

The Construction of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company Line in California (©Gerald T. Ahnert, April 2013)

The Overland Mail 1849-1869 (Le Roy R. Hafen, 1926)