Butterfield Overland Stage Line

Duane's take

The official marker out here in Wise County tells it this way, and I'll do my best to give it its due. Now, picture this: sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, somebody looked at a map of the United States, and I mean the whole sprawling, untamed width of it, and said, we are going to connect St. Louis to San Francisco.

Not with a telegram. Not with a prayer and a good horse. With a stagecoach.

On a schedule. Twice a week. And they did it.

The Butterfield Overland mail line came rolling right through Decatur, out here in what would become Wise County, carrying the mail and the passengers between St. Louis and San Francisco from 1858 all the way to 1861. Three years of semi-weekly service, rain or shine, through country that had no particular interest in making things easy for anybody.

Now, the route itself (and this number deserves a slow breath before you say it) was two thousand, seven hundred and ninety-five miles long. Two thousand, seven hundred, and ninety-five. The marker calls this a pioneer enterprise of the first magnitude, and honestly, what else are you going to call it?

Superior service, they said, maintained across nearly three thousand miles of American landscape, and Decatur sat right in the middle of that story. Next time you pass through town, you're rolling along a road that once felt the rumble of something a whole lot more stubborn and remarkable than most of us will ever be.

What the marker says

Through Decatur passed the Butterfield Overland mail line connecting St. Louis and San Francisco with semi-weekly stage and mail service, 1858-1861. The length of the route, 2,795 miles and the superior service maintained made this a pioneer enterprise of the first magnitude.