I don’t know if I become aware of Mr. Butterfield’s stage coaches by way of the Friday night movies at the Centrahoma School house or by some other means but my brother Gerald, a cutting edge historian of all things western and many other useless bits and pieces of historic trivia, was my leader. Especially if these bits of history included things like gold coins and free loot. Thus, it was in the summer of 1942 we first spoke of the famous Butterfield Stage Line. “Matter of fact, chimed in my grandpa J. T. Bullard, that stage line ran just on top of nearby Wolf Mountain.

The next day Gerald and I hoofed it over to the big mountain’s base and we even climbed a little way on it but didn’t reach its summit. In fact, we sort of gave up as summer ended and we went home. But back home in Centrahoma, Wolf Mountain was still very much on Gerald’s Mind, and it seemed hardly any time that the summer of 1943 rolled around. It was wartime and my Uncle Jack was the only one of J. T.’s sons still at home — the others were off killing Germans and Japs. But Uncle Jack had limited interest in hiking a mile or so and then going up to the summit of this wellknown mountain. It was up to us to go find the gold.

Gerald’s speculations were founded solidly on what he had seen at the movies about this old mail route that ran from 1859 to 1861. It had prompted my grandpa to offer to take us up there-and he did. Armed with his rifle and axe we took off one morning. J. T. was a fast walker and in no time, we were on the hillside, going up. There were some rocky outcroppings which would have been tough but grandpa led us around them and soon we were atop the mountain. Almost immediately we turned and went back. Gerald was far from being satisfied. “We never got to look for the gold,” Gerald told me when we got back to the house. Gerald had in his mind a story about a big robbery at the stagecoach station up on the mountain in which much gold was taken from the Butterfield stage in 1852, To shorten the story, we planned to return, which we did. We both had our WWII style canteens for water and grandma fixed us up some of her snacks. Much to our surprise, we found the old station (stage stop) and it was easily identifiable. Gerald knew, somehow, that there was a well, some log buildings and corrals — stuff Gerald had expected to find. He told me he couldn’t share who told him all that (Uncle Jack) and I didn’t push too much. We found ruts and other signs of the road Mr. Butterfield had made and despite our crawling around a lot we didn’t even find a copper penny, much less gold pieces.

Gerald spent many hours the following year telling me how we went wrong and plotted our return. But we never returned. The next year his interests shifted to an unwashed “Goat Ridge” girl which we met at the Goat Ridge Panola Church vacation bible school. I remember the girl as a little thing who lived down a lonesome trail in a log cabin with a fairly large group of siblings and a mom and dad. Grandma warned me not to go inside as those are “nasty” people. “You’ll likely catch something in there.” I tried to stay clear but of course, Gerald didn’t.

The massive shipment that was reported lost near the stagecoach station remained unmolested by Gerald and me. I sometimes think about its whereabouts. But Gerald mostly just thought about that sort of nasty but pretty little teen girl. I could a been rich and he could have caught something, Have a good week and go to your church Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com