My knowledge of stagecoaches is from watching those old black and white movies of the 40’s. People like Roy Rogers and Hop-along Cassidy saved breathless passengers from the jillions of robbers that hid behind every rock waiting to remove the “strongbox” which nearly always contained a gold shipment. And sometimes they would rob and/or kill the passengers. That was over at The Main Theatre in Stonewall.

In reality, stagecoaches were the best and safest way to get around in our early history. But there was no crosscountry stagecoach service between New York City and San Francisco, California. Even our newfangled railroads hadn’t figured out a way to cross the nation’s high mountain passes or scorching deserts separating these two largest and fastest growing US world economic centers. To get mail from New York City to San Francisco was possible only by sea. By ship around by the Strait of Magellan on a ship sailing October 18, 1848 a packet of mail would arrive on February 28, 1849. Much too long. It was then believed that our Country’s “Manifest Destiny” was to become a coast to coast nation. Someday?

It was a national crisis with no easy solutions. But America was a young and impatient country. it was a problem crying for a solution. One the post offi ce decided to solve. On September 16, 1857 they inked a contract to John Butterfield to establish a land mail service to connect the two coasts. They awarded Butterfi eld $600,000 a year for six years to get it done. Butterfi eld was a man of action. He went to work quickly commissioning the building of 250 special 9-passenger coaches. He also had mail wagons and freight wagons built. Water tanker wagons (to haul water out west) were built and he established stage stations all the way across the hot desert sands of New Mexico, Arizona and the sands of the Mojave not to mention Oklahoma and a place called Texas.

Butterfi eld made deals with Cochise and other Indian leaders (some say he paid them off) to make sure of the safety of his coaches and their precious cargos. When the stages left Lawton’s Fort Sill, they entered the uncivilized plains and deserts which were the domains of Comancheros, Mexican banditos and all sorts of bad people. Butterfield told his passengers to bring their long rifles to fight off these sorts. One-way fare was $200.00. All the depots in Oklahoma were owned and operated by Choctaw Indians.

Finally, the morning of September 16, 1858 the fi rst stage left St Louis. Crossing the Poteau River on the 19 ^th it entered Oklahoma. Twenty-three days, twenty-three hours and 30 minutes later the stage arrived in San Francisco. Fastest time for any overland passage yet. Perhaps one of the Stage’s most perilous strips was Oklahoma’s Indian Territory. It was a den of outlaws. Hideouts for the most wanted. People like Jesse James, Belle Starr and others of that sort.

It was sort of what caused my brother, Gerald, and me to thinking. Stories told in my Grandpa’s house up on Goat Ridge just south of Wolf Mountain, a very visible mountain of that area. Robberies. Gold coins all over a station called Walkers Station, first station inside of Indian Territory and being close to my Grandpa’s farm caused Gerald and I, armed with one .22 cal. rifl e and a sack of leftover biscuits from breakfast to go for a day-long hike. It took a long while to climb Wolf Mountain, but we found what we thought we were looking for: The remains of this “Walker’s Station.”

It was getting late in the evening when we fi nally staggered back to the farm. We had found ruins of a few buildings. Some old rail fences. Old barns and a large well with rock combing. Traces of an old road. No gold. No money at all. Gerald summed it all up by saying, “I always wondered what it looked like on the other side of that big mountain.” I think that Mr. Butterfi eld would have understood what he meant.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com