A long, bumpy ride

Boozman pushes trail designation after 16 years

In an age in which we can reach into our pockets, withdraw a handsized device and within seconds begin a conversation with someone anywhere in the world, it can be hard to fathom the astonishment generated by the milestones of the past.

Take, for example, the 1869 ceremony that witnessed the placement of the last spike in the First Transcontinental Railroad, a rail line between Council

Bluffs, Iowa, and Sacramento, Calif.

It took six years for the Central Pacific Railroad of the west and the Union Pacific Railroad of the east to link the two sides of a still-wild and still-growing nation.

On May 10, 1969, in Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, the new connection reduced the travel time between the two sides of the country from many months to about a week.

In the world of communication, the telegraph represented an astounding breakthrough, cutting the time for a message from days, weeks or months to just hours.

And before either of those, the stage coach, for several years around the middle of the 1800s, represented the best option for getting mail and news from one side of the country to the other.

The longest version of these “overland trail” delivery routes was the Butterfield.

The job was this: Pick up mail and passengers at St. Louis and Memphis and transport them west, with a final terminus of San Francisco. According to the U.S. Postal Service, contractor John Butterfield agreed to make that trip within 25 days, with stage coaches departing twice a week.

The Memphis route ran right through the middle section of Arkansas.

The St. Louis route traveled north and south through Northwest Arkansas. Both connected in Fort Smith for the long western journey through Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico and into California. The route was operated from 1858 to 1861.

What’s all this history got to do with today?

U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, 16 years after it was first proposed, has filed a bill to make the 3,000-mile Butterfield Overland Trail a national historical trail.

It would certainly be a nice designation, a boost for future Americans to learn more about the nation’s history of development and communication.

Certainly, such a designation isn’t suddenly going to produce an onslaught of tourists to Arkansas, but for people who are already interested in American history, highlighting any locale’s connection to significant individuals or events helps to promote tourism overall.

The historic designation will, 162 years after the trail was established, again give it a role in communicating compelling information about the United States.

Giddy-up.