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such as Winfrey, “Overland Mail Trail,” p. 32, main- tain that only 141 stations were established initially, but by the first part of 1859, 200 stations would be in service. In Appendix C, a report filed by the Postmaster General for 1858 lists 147 stations. Harry Sinclair Drago, Roads to Empire, the Dramatic Conquest of the American West (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1968), p. 158, claimed that But- terfield had to hire 1,500 men and spend over a million dollars in the year-long preparation.
93. Faulk,DestinyRoad,p.95.
94. Wilson, Historical Profile, p. 31.
95. Bureau of Land Management, National
Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form (Las Cruces: United States Department of the Interior, August 12, 1977), p. 8.
96. Faulk, Destiny Road, p. 98.
97. Winfrey, “Overland Mail Trail,” p. 34. There is also some evidence that the Apaches may have been contracted to furnish some of the hay and firewood.
98. John Frizzell and Mildred Frizzell, “The Celerity and the Mud Wagon,” Frontier Times, Vol. 49(Feb.-Mar.,1975),p.25(hereaftercitedasFriz- zellandFrizzell,“TheCelerity”). Thisinnovative vehicle was designed by Stephen Agustus Seymour of the James Goold Coach Company and manufac- tured at Albany, New York.
99. Faulk, Destiny Road, p. 96.
100. William Eugene Hollon, “Great Days of the Overland Stage,” Great Adventures of the Old West, edited by the Editors of American Heritage (New York: American Heritage Press, 1969), p. 216 (hereafter cited as Hollon, “Great Days”). Some reports as in Frizzell and Frizzell, “The Celerity,” pp. 26-27, indicated that the Celerity was a disap- pointment to the Texas stagemen and that more than half of the 100 ordered may have been canceled before delivery was made. This may be true, because there appears neither to be a successor to the coach, nor is any example known to exist. Whatever its fate, the wagon was the first to incorporate the idea of
berths or beds in public conveyances.
101. Faulk, Destiny Road, p. 160. William Tallack,
in Walter B. Lang, The First Overland Mail — Butter- field Trail, St. Louis to San Francisco, 1858-1861, Vol. 1 (East Aurora, New York: Roycrofters, 1940), p. 152 (hereafter cited as Lang, St. Louis), noted that if the eastbound and westbound coaches were both close to the station, a race sometimes ensued be-
cause there was frequently only one fresh team avail- able and the loser would have only jaded animals for the next leg of the trip.
102. Faulk, Destiny Road, p. 98.
103. Winfrey, “Overland Mail Trail,” p. 34.
104. Waterman Lilly Ormsby, Die Butterfield Over-
land Mail (San Marino: The Huntington Library, 1954), p. 104 (hereafter cited as Ormsby, Overland Mail). The stage caught up with Leach’s train at Fort Yuma where the road builders were heading for San
Diego.
105. Hindley, “On the Trail,” p. 33.
106. Winfrey, “Overland Mail Trail,” p. 35.
107. Ormsby, Overland Mail, pp. 11-12. Accord-
ing to Lang, St. Louis, p. 103, the stage-carried mail arrived first.
108. Ormsby, Overland Mail, p. 72.
109. Ibid., p. 37. El Paso was the largest Overland Mail Company base on the route, and from 1857 through 1861, the station and stables covered a block at the southeast corner of Overland and South El Paso streets. According to Roscoe Platt Conkling and Margaret B. Conkling, Die Butterfield Overland Mail,1857-1869, Vols.(Glendale:A.H.ClarkCo., 1947),Vol.2,p.61,BradfordDailywasthedriverof the first eastbound coach to reach El Paso, just after noon September 27, and the first westbound coach passed through at five in the morning of September 30, with Henry Skillman at the reins.
110. Ormsby, Overland Mail, p. 80.
111. Ibid.,p. 81.
112. Ibid., pp. 80-82. Ormsby is quite correct; the
stage route deviated from Leach’s road to maintain contact with water sources. Wilson, Historical Profile, p. 32 noted that in May 1859 Colonel Ben- jamin L. E. Bonneville described the Cooke’s Spring stop as “a little hut with four men.”
113. Ormsby, Overland Mail, p. 60; Lang, 57. Louis, pp. 82, 110. This was the only leg for which Ormsby made a significant error in his calculations. If one uses Ormsby’s elapsed time, and the distance later established by postal agent G. Bailey, riding the first eastbound coach, the correct rate was nearly 5.6 miles per hour.
114. Ibid., p. 61. Ormsby’s failure to make the correction was unfortunate, because every source consulted failed to detect the error and repeated it. For complete accuracy, the adjustment should have been two hours nine minutes. See Figure 30 for the timetable information.
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