Park Archives: Butterfield Overland National Historic Trail

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.

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.

The contents of brochures, site bulletins and trading cards (denoted with a colored caption) can be viewed by clicking on the cover. Most modern-day brochures, however, are cover only (denoted by a white caption) due to photograph copyrights. These items are historical in scope and are intended for educational purposes only; they are not meant as an aid for travel planning. The dates under each brochure do not reflect the complete range of years that a particular brochure was issued.

Butterfield Overland Mail State Route Across Texas
2003

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Butterfield Overland Mail
12/1982

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Drive the Butterfield Stagecoach Route of Northwest Arkansas
Date Unknown

The following visual bibliography is just a sampling of the handbooks and books which have been published for this park. NPSHistory.com does not endorse these, but are merely presenting them for informational purposes only. As most are copyrighted, we are only able to provide the covers, and not contents, of these publications.

cover only The Butterfield Overland Mail: Only Through Passenger on the First Westbound Stage Waterman L. Ormsby 1991	cover only 900 Miles on the Butterfield Trail A.C. Greene 2006	cover only The Butterfield Overland Mail: Only Through Passenger on the First Westbound Stage Waterman L. Ormsby 2007	cover only Butterfield's Byway: America's First Overland Mail Route Across the West Melody Groves 2014
cover only The Texas Frontier and the Butterfield Overland Mail, 1858–1861 Glen Sample Ely 2016