Old stage trail faces last historic hurdle
National nod now up to Congress
The National Park Service and U.S. Department of the Interior have approved a plan to make the 3,000-mile Butterfield Overland Trail a national historic trail.
Two branches of the trail went through Arkansas, so about 337 miles of the historic trail would be in this state.
The proposal is now in the hands of Congress.
“They could pass it next week, next year or not pass it at all,” said Frank Norris, a historian with the park service’s National Trails Intermountain Region office in Santa Fe, N.M., which completed the “special resource study” in May.
“National historic trails are extended trails that follow as closely as possible and practicable the original routes of travel that are of national significance,” according to the study.
The designation could boost tourism as history buffs hit the road from Arkansas or Missouri to California along the old Butterfield stagecoach route.
Some Butterfield stagecoach structures still exist along the way, including Potts Inn in Pottsville and the barn at Fitzgerald Station in Springdale.
The Butterfield Overland
Mail Co., also known as the Butterfield Stage, held a contract with the federal government to transport mail and passengers between the cities of St. Louis and Memphis to the east and San Francisco to the west, according to the study. This postal route and stagecoach service operated from 1858 to 1861.
“With the advent of the Civil War, this southern mail route was discontinued and moved farther north,” according to the study. “Following the Civil War, other stage lines and mail carriers moved mail and passengers until the railroad was completed to the west coast in 1869.”
After traveling 4-5 mph through Northwest Arkansas, the initial Butterfield stage arrived in San Francisco after a total trip of 23 days and 23.5 hours, according to the study. That was three hours ahead of schedule and a day faster than Congress had stipulated in its authorization bill.
The Park Service’s study was transmitted to the appropriate congressional committees May 29.
The study determined that all of the requirements of the National Trails System Act have been met, Ryan Hambleton, deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks with the Park Service, wrote to the chairmen of the Senate committee on energy and natural resources and the House of Representatives committee on natural resources.
While the Interior Department approves of the plan, it “does not support trail designation at this time due to the $11.6 billion deferred maintenance backlog within NPS,” Hambleton wrote.
“The Interior Department has a right to say that, but that’s not going to stop Congress from approving this trail if Congress decides that’s what’s in its best interests,” Norris said. “Whether this kind of thing gets funded or not is often a delicate dance between agencies and funding requests. Congress could very well pass this and say ‘Interior Department, somehow deal with this. We’re telling you we’re authorizing this trail; find some money for it.’”
Patrick Creamer, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said the Interior Department has been using similar boilerplate language when approving other projects.
According to the study, potential costs to the federal government for the Butterfield national trail project include:
Between $300,000 and $500,000 to develop a comprehensive plan of trail administration and management.
Between $350,000 and $500,000 in annual operating costs, which would include salaries for one or two fulltime employees.
$1 million over a five-year period for an inventory to “further define high-potential sites and segments.”
Between $118,834 and $544,792 for trailhead development.
Between $3,270 and $15,888 per mile for trail signage.
Other costs also could be incurred, according to the study.
“These cost estimates are not binding on Congress should it choose to designate the Butterfield Overland Trail as a national historic trail,” according to the study. “Designation of a national historic trail does not guarantee any funding or staffing for the administration of the trail.”
The study was approved after a public involvement process starting in 2012 with 13 public meetings along the proposed routes, including meetings in Fayetteville and Fort Smith.
Boozman said he was pleased with the National Park Service’s decision.
“The first overland transcontinental mail by stagecoach was carried on the Butterfield Trail,” Boozman said in a news release. “The trail played an important role in our nation’s westward expansion and certainly made major contributions to the development and settlement of Arkansas during its short time in existence.”
John Butterfield’s stagecoaches made stops in the Arkansas counties of St. Francis, Prairie, Lonoke, Faulkner, Conway, Pope, Yell, Logan and Franklin along the southern route and Benton, Washington and Crawford counties along the northern route, according to Boozman’s news release.
Stagecoaches didn’t go all the way to St. Louis and Memphis. Passengers and mail left St. Louis by rail to Tipton, Mo., where they were transferred to Butterfield stagecoaches.
On the southern route, roads in eastern Arkansas were often flooded. Passengers had to take a ferry across the Mississippi River from Memphis, then catch a train to Madison, just east of Forrest City, according to the study.
From there, a stagecoach took passengers and mail to Fort Smith, where the two routes converged before making the rest of the journey west to San Francisco.
So the southern part of the Butterfield Overland National Trail will begin in Madison and head west from there.
The northern route in Arkansas will stretch from the Missouri border near Gateway to Fort Smith.
Norris said the route from Madison to Fort Smith wasn’t as reliable or used as much as the route from Tipton, Mo.
For the most part, the Butterfield route connected several known roads, according to the study. Researchers analyzed 3,292 miles of trail routes considered nationally significant, which included two different Butterfield routes in parts of Texas and Arizona.
The Butterfield Overland Trail intersects or runs alongside short sections of three existing national historic trails — the Trail of Tears, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro and the Old Spanish Trail. The Butterfield trail also runs for as much as 400 miles along portions of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, according to the study.
“The Butterfield Overland Trail terminates at about the same location as the Pony Express National Historic Trail,” according to the study. “In addition, the Butterfield Overland Trail crosses the Chisholm and Western cattle trails that are currently under consideration for designation as national historic trails.”