Primary Sources on the Butterfield Overland Mail Company
In commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, Wells
Fargo has pulled together some primary sources and educational activities for teachers and
their students to explore its importance in U. S. history.
A Brief History of the Overland Mail Company
On a September evening in 1858, a Concord coach set out on a history-making journey – the first run of the Overland Mail Company. The St. Louis Evening News called the inaugural ride “more important than any event that had
occurred in the West since the discovery of California.”
Since the beginning of the Gold Rush, Californians wanted better transportation options and faster communication
with eastern states. For most of the 1850s, steamships provided the only communication between California and
the rest of the United States. Mail shipments sent twice a month by steamship took three weeks to arrive, sometimes longer. In 1857, Congress worked to increase mail frequency and decrease delivery time. A land route provided the solution. Congress authorized an overland mail route between St. Louis and San Francisco and invited bids.
John Butterfield, vice president of the American Express Company, formed the Overland Mail Company to bid on
the contract. The American, Adams, and United States Express Companies and Wells Fargo held monopolies in areas
that encompassed the route, and Butterfield invited them to join in the new company.
The partners incorporated the Overland Mail Company on October 22, 1857, and the company contracted with the
U.S. Postmaster General to carry the mail in no more than 25 days along the 2,800-mile route. The route ran from
St. Louis to Arkansas and then to Texas, crossing the Rio Grande River near El Paso, and on to Fort Yuma, Calif. From
there, the route was to go “through the best passes and along the best valleys for safe and expeditious staging to
San Francisco and back, twice a week, in good four-horse post coaches or spring wagons, suitable for the conveyance of passengers as well as the safety and security of the mails.” While the coaches carried passengers, the mail
had priority – to be carried “in a safe and secure manner, free from wet or other injury, in a boot under the driver’s
seat or other secure place, and in preference to passengers and to their entire exclusion if its weight and bulk require it.” Payment for this service was $600,000 a year for six years.
The Overland Mail used graceful Concord coaches at the ends of the line. For the great middle, James Goold & Co.
of Albany, N.Y., constructed rugged, canvas-topped “celerity” wagons. Allegedly swift, they were in reality cramped.
Two sets of three passengers faced each other, interlocking knees.
Although the first mail sent by stage from San Francisco consisted of only 50 or 60 letters, a year later, the Sacramento Daily Union estimated that the Overland Mail Company carried about 18,000 letters each month over the
route in both directions. Despite the overall success of the overland mail, outside events intervened. By February
1861, six southern states had seceded from the Union, including Texas, through which the overland stage route
passed. In response, Congress chose a central route through Salt Lake City in early 1861 and abandoned the southern route. Yet, the impact on a young nation was indelible. When the first Overland stage reached St. Louis from
San Francisco, John Butterfield sent a celebratory telegram to President James Buchanan. The president grasped
the full significance of the achievement in his reply:
“It is a glorious triumph for civilization and the Union. Settlements will soon follow the course of the road, and the
East and the West will be bound together by a chain of living Americans which can never be broken.”
Primary Sources
Suggested Activities
1. Using the math formula below, have students figure out how long it took the stagecoach to travel 2,800 miles from St. Louis, Missouri to
San Francisco, California traveling at 5 miles per hour.
Time
=
Distance
Rate
2,800 (distance from St. Louis, MO to San Francisco, CA)
Time (in hours) =
5 miles per hour (rate)
The answer should be 560 hours. How many days was this?
Now, have students figure out how long it would take to travel 2,800 miles today
from St. Louis, MO to San Francisco, CA traveling at 65 miles per hour.
2,800 (distance from St. Louis, MO to San Francisco, CA)
Time =
65 miles per hour (rate)
2. Using the Overland Mail Company Schedule http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/kids/forts/images/butterfieldschedule.html, have
students plot the stagecoach route on the 1858 map of the United States
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Maps/Pac_RR_Surveys_1858.html; then, have students plot Casey’s RV re-enactment route
http://www.wellsfargohistory.com/wfoverlandsched.htm on a modern-day travel map of the United States. Have students consider
how the route westward has changed. Divide the students in groups to research the cities listed on Casey’s travel route to find out
each place’s history, geography, industries, etc. and make a poster presentation to class.
3. Use these drawings , quotes from the Travelers’ Tales, a raised relief topographic map
http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/forms/rrmaps.html, and weather maps
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crh/ to have students discover factors that slowed stagecoach travel. Then, have students draft a list of at least three travel conditions that
slowed the stagecoach.
Primary Sources
Memoirs of a Youthful Traveler
G:\AAA - HISTORICAL
SERVICES\MUSEUMS\PORTLAND\Primary Sources
Online\MEMOIRS OF A YOUTHFUL TRAVELER.doc
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Archives
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Archives
Suggested Activities
1. Have students become correspondents for the local newspaper with the assignment to travel on the overland stage
and report on the trip. Use the journalistic approach (Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?) to have students
write a newspaper article that describes their experience traveling on the stagecoach.
2. Have students imagine that they are traveling on the Overland Mail route and write a series of journal entries
describing the stagecoach experience.
Primary Sources
Suggested Activity
John Butterfield, the President of the Overland Mail Company, has hired your class to come up with a “To
Do List” of what needs to get done to run a stagecoach line from Missouri to California. Have your
students read the primary sources below, hold a class discussion, and write your list. Use More Travelers’
Tales G:\AAA - HISTORICAL SERVICES\MUSEUMS\PORTLAND\Primary Sources Online\More Travelers
Tales.doc
, Charles Cole’s survey report from the exploring part of the Overland Mail Company G:\AAA HISTORICAL SERVICES\MUSEUMS\PORTLAND\Primary Sources Online\OMCReport.doc, and the route
maps to assist in drafting the list. To get you started, consider the following questions:
1. What is the distance of the route?
2. How many stagecoach stops will you need to build?
3. How long could a team of horses travel before the stagecoach needs a new team of
horses?
4. How many drivers will you need to hire?
5. How many stagecoaches will you need to buy?
6. Will you provide food for the passengers? If so, what will you provide?
7. What food will you need for the horses and mules?
Primary Sources
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Archives
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Archives
Suggested Activity
Have students compare and contrast the daguerreotype with the drawing. Invented by Frenchman Louis-JacquesMande Daguerre in 1839, the daguerreotype was one of the earliest types of photographs. Visit the Library of
Congress website to view their collection of daguerreotypes and learn more about their significance in U. S. history.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/daghtml/daghome.html
A Note on Sources:
Beginning in the 1940s, historians began re-publishing travelers’ accounts and including primary wood engraved illustrations taken from
Harper’s Weekly and Leslie’s Weekly. These books are either in libraries, in print, or available online.
Roscoe P. Conkling and Margaret P. Conkling, The Butterfield Overland Mail. 3 vols. (Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1947) is
the classic history.
Walter P. Lang, The First Overland Mail, 2 vols. (1940, 1945) is a compilation of accounts.
Waterman L. Ormsby, The Butterfield Overland Mail (1858; San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1942, and in print.)
Albert D. Richardson, Beyond the Mississippi (Hartford, CT: American Publishing Company, 1867), 215-266.
George G. Smith, The Life and Times of George Foster Pierce (Sparta, GA: Hancock Publishing Company, 1888). Pierce’s 1859 trip is
reprinted in The Quarterly of the Historical Society of Southern California 21 (June-September 1859): 45-78.
David A. White, ed. News of the Plains and Rockies, 1803-1865. Vol. 7 (Spokane, WA: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2000) reprints
several accounts.
Rebecca Yokum, “Memoirs of a Youthful Traveler [aged 15]” in The Overland Stage (San Francisco: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., c. 1970).