Butterfield Overland Mail was a stagecoach service in the United States operating from 1858 to 1861. It carried passengers and U.S. Mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California. The routes from each eastern terminus met at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then continued through Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, and California ending in San Francisco. On March 3, 1857, Congress authorized the U.S. postmaster general, at that time Aaron V. Brown, to contract for delivery of the U.S. mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. Prior to this, U.S. Mail bound for the Far West had been delivered by the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line since June 1857.
The San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line, also known as the Jackass Mail, was the earliest overland stagecoach and mail operation from the Eastern United States to California in operation between 1857 and 1861. It was created, organized and financed by James E. Birch the head of the California Stage Company. Birch was awarded the first contract for overland service on the "Southern Route", designated Route 8076. This contract required a semi-monthly service in four-horse coaches, scheduled to leave San Antonio and San Diego on the ninth and the 24th of each month, with 30 days allowed for each trip.
The Butterfield Overland Mail was a transport and mail delivery system that employed stagecoaches that travelled on a specific route between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco, California and which passed through the New Mexico Territory. It was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until March 30, 1861. The route that was operated extended from where the ferry across the Colorado River to Fort Yuma Station, California was located, through New Mexico Territory via, Tucson to the Rio Grande and Mesilla, New Mexico then south to Franklin, Texas, midpoint on the route. The New Mexico Territory mail route was divided into two divisions each under a superintendent. Tucson was the headquarters of the 3rd Division of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. Franklin Station in the town of Franklin,, was the headquarters of the 4th Division.
Peterman's Station is a historic locale, site of a ranch and stage station located along the Gila River. It was first established by a man named Peterman, in 1857 along the route of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line, later a station of its successor, the Butterfield Overland Mail, 19 miles east of Filibuster Camp, 12 miles west of Griswell's Station.
The Butterfield Overland Mail route in Baja California was created as a result of an act by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until June 30, 1861 as part of the Second Division of the route. Subsequently other stage lines operated along the route until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Yuma, Arizona.
Mission Camp is a historic locale, site of a later Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station, located about four and a half miles (7.2 km) west of Wellton on the south bank of the Gila River, in Yuma County, Arizona. It was located 11.49 miles (18.49 km) miles east of Gila City, Arizona, 4.51 miles (7.26 km) west of the original Butterfield stage station at Filibusters Camp, and 15.14 miles (24.37 km) west of Antelope Peak Station, a later station that with Mission Camp Station replaced Filibusters Camp Station.
Birchville, or Smith Ranch, now a ghost town, in what is now Hudspeth County, Texas. Birchville was a settlement on the San Antonio-El Paso Road in what was El Paso County. Birchville lay 35 miles northwest of the First Camp on Rio Grande and 24.8 miles southeast of San Elizario, according to the table of distances for the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in the Texas Almanac of 1857. Later used as a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail, the distances to the station for that line were given as 241⁄2 miles from San Elizario, 33 miles from Fort Quitman.
Dragoon Wash, a stream tributary to the San Pedro River, in Cochise County, Arizona. It has its source just southwest of the town of Dragoon. 32°01′21″N110°02′46″W It runs southwesterly to meet the San Pedro River.
Antelope Hill, formerly Antelope Peak, is a summit, at an elevation of 804 feet, near the Gila River in Yuma County, Arizona.
Socatoon Station was a stagecoach station of the Butterfield Overland Mail between 1858 and 1861. It was located four miles (6.4 km) east of Sacaton at a Maricopa village from which it took its name. This station was located 22 miles (35 km) east of Maricopa Wells Station, 11 miles (18 km) east of Casa Blanca Station and 13 miles (21 km) north of Oneida Station.
Ewell Station is a later station of the Butterfield Overland Mail located 24.4 miles (39.3 km) east of Dragoon Springs, Arizona and 12.22 miles (19.67 km) west of Apache Pass Station. This station shortened the route between Dragoon Springs and Apache Pass Stations and provided a water stop not previously available. The station was probably started in late 1858 as it is not listed in Oct., 1858 but appears in an account from 1862, after Butterfield had ceased operation. Water at the station was hauled from a spring, located 4 miles (6.4 km) north of the station in the Dos Cabezas Mountains and stored in a cistern.
Nugents Pass or Nugent's Pass is a gap at an elevation of 4,593 feet (1,400 m) in Cochise County, Arizona. The pass was named for John Nugent, who provided notes of his journey with a party of Forty-Niners across what became the Tucson Cutoff to Lt. John G. Parke, on expedition to identify a feasible railroad route from the Pima Villages to the Rio Grande.
Stein's Pass, is a gap or mountain pass through the Peloncillo Mountains of Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The pass was named after United States Army Major Enoch Steen, who camped nearby in 1856, as he explored the recently acquired Gadsden Purchase. The pass is in the form of a canyon cut through the mountains through which Steins Creek flows to the west just west of the apex of the pass to the canyon mouth at 32°13′19″N109°01′48″W.
Cienega of San Simon, was a cienega, an area of springs 13 miles up the San Simon River from San Simon Station, in Cochise County, Arizona.
The Tucson Cutoff was a significant change in the route of the Southern Emigrant Trail. It became generally known after a party of Forty-Niners led by Colonel John Coffee Hays followed a route suggested to him by a Mexican Army officer as a shorter route than Cooke's Wagon Road which passed farther south to cross the mountains to the San Pedro River at Guadalupe Pass.
Burro Cienega is a stream that arises at an elevation of 5990 feet, at 32°28′48″N108°27′05″W, in the Big Burro Mountains in Grant County, New Mexico. Its mouth is at 4196 feet at a playa about 5.5 miles southeast of Lordsburg in Hidalgo County, New Mexico.
Filibuster Camp is the historic locale of a camp along the Gila River route of the Southern Emigrant Trail in Yuma County, Arizona, named in memory of a failed filibuster expedition to Sonora that began there in 1856.
Texas Hill Station is a site of a later Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station. It was one of several built in 1859 to increase the number of water stops and team changes along the drier and hotter sections of the route and was located about 2 miles east of Texas Hill.
Limpia Creek, originally known as the Rio Limpia, is a stream that heads in Jeff Davis County, Texas and its mouth is in Pecos County, Texas. Limpa is the Spanish word for "clear or clean water". The creek has its head in the Davis Mountains at an elevation of 7,160 feet, at location 30°38′27″N104°09′42″W on the northeast slope of Mount Livermore. The creek flows 42 miles down Limpia Canyon past Fort Davis and Wild Rose Pass to the canyon mouth, where it turns eastward to its mouth at its confluence with Barrilla Draw, where it disappears into the ground at an elevation of 3,533 feet / 1,077 meters.
Desert Station is a historic locale, the site of a later station of the Butterfield Overland Mail, in what is now Maricopa County, Arizona.
