Butterfield's Byway: America's First Overland Mail Route Across the West

Melody Groves

may 2014 · Arcadia Publishing

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John Butterfield's mail service connected the East and West Coasts in one of the great entrepreneurial and pioneering stories of the American West. Until 1858, California's gold fields were reached only by horseback, wagon or ship around Cape Horn. Congress decided a 2,800-mile, twenty-five-day stagecoach line would roll from St. Louis to San Francisco. Former Utica, New York mayor Butterfield hired one thousand men and bought 1,200 horses, 600 mules and 250 wagons. Surveying the wilderness, he built roads and two hundred way stations, graded river fords and dug one hundred wells. Join author Melody Groves on a cross-country trip from Missouri to California, and all points in between, as she recounts the Butterfield Stage Line's amazing odyssey.

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Melody Groves is the author of the Colton Family Saga series "Border Ambush" (finalist, 2009 New Mexico Book Awards), "Sonoran Rage, Arizona War" (winner, 2008 New Mexico Book Awards) and "Kansas Bleeds." Her essay about living in New Mexico was published in "Voices of New Mexico." Melody is a contributing editor for Round Up magazine and contributing writer for "American Westward Expansion, "? a collegiate history encyclopedia. Her books include "Hoist a Cold One! Historic Bars of the Southwest."