~#1120~Overland Mail~Issue of 1958~MNH Plate Block of (4)~

~Illustrations Included~Mail Coach~Map of Southwest~

The Butterfield Overland Mail, also known as the Oxbow Route, the Butterfield Overland Stage, or the Butterfield Stage, was a stagecoach route in the United States, operating from 1857 to 1861. It was a conduit for the United States mail between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California. Butterfield Stage also known as the Butterfield Overland Mail Company had the government mail contract from September 15, 1857. John Warren Butterfield (who was in a partnership with the principals of Wells Fargo for the American Express company) was paid $600,000 (USD) to get the mail between St. Louis and San Francisco in 25 days. At that time it was the largest land-mail contract ever awarded in the US. It was required by contract to go through El Paso, Texas and through Fort Yuma near present day Yuma, Arizona-the so-called "Oxbow Route". The western fare one way was $200 with most stages arriving 22 days later at its final destination. This route was an extra 600 miles further than the central and northern routes through Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah. However the southern route was free of snow.

A correspondent for the New York Herald, Waterman Ormsby, remarked after his 2,812 mile trek through the western US to San Francisco on a Butterfield Stagecoach thus: "Had I not just come out over the route, I would be perfectly willing to go back, but I now know what Hell is like. I've just had 24 days of it." Ormsby traveled the entire distance of the Butterfield Route.

Employing over 800 at its peak, it used 250 Concord Stagecoaches and 1800 head of stock, horses and mules and 139 relay stations or frontier forts in its heyday. An act of Congress, approved March 2, 1861, discontinued this route and service ceased June 30, 1861. On the same date the central route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Placerville, California, went into effect.

The only surviving station building is Oak Grove Butterfield Stage Station, near Warner Springs in San Diego County, California. It and the location of Warner's Ranch, another station 20 miles away, were declared to be National Historic Landmarks in 1961.

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