Gove County KS Archives History - Books .....The Butterfield Trail 1930 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ks/ksfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com July 22, 2005, 6:09 pm Book Title: History Of Gove County, Kansas CHAPTER V THE BUTTERFIELD TRAIL The Leavenworth expedition does not seem to have succeeded in popularizing the Smoky Hill route, and the overland business continued to go over the Republican and Santa Fe trails. The life of the Smoky Hill route really began when David A. Butterfield took hold of it in 1865. He was a man of much experience in freighting and seems to have had no difficulty in getting capital interested in the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, as the enterprise was called, or in getting business for the company. Atchison was the eastern terminus of the line and Denver the western. The surveying party which fixed the route left Atchison June 13, 1865. In the party was Lieutenant Julian R. Fitch of the United States Army. Here is an item from his. report which will interest Gove county people: "Nine and one fourth miles west (from Downer station) we crossed Rock Castle Creek. Camped two days to rest. The scenery here is really grand. One mile south is a lofty calcareous limestone bluff having the appearance of an old English castle with pillars and avenues traversing it in every direction. We named it Castle Rock." This may be the first time the name was ever applied to the place. The first wagon train followed June 24. This caravan—known as "Train A"—was a small one loaded with 150,000 pounds of freight for Denver and other Colorado points, and the freight rate was 22 l/2 cents per pound. A passenger and express service was put on in September; Butterfield himself was a passenger on the first stage, which reached Denver Sept. 23. The trip was widely advertised and Butterfield was given a great ovation at Denver. Root's "Overland Stage to California" gives a list of the stations on the Butterfield Trail and the distances between them. It entered Gove county at the point where Hackberry creek crosses the county line. Here somewhere, probably on the Trego county side of the line, was a station known as Castle Rock Creek. Leaving the Hackberry here the trail angles southwest to the Smoky. Eleven miles from Castle Rock Creek station was Grannall Spring. After reaching the Smoky the trail continues up the liver till it leaves the county; there were two stations on the river in this county, Chalk Bluff, 12 miles from Grannall Spring, and Monument, 13 miles from Chalk Bluff; Monument was an eating station on the stage route and here the government established an army post for the protection of the trail. The Butterfield Overland Dispatch did a large business from the start. In one day during the month, of July, 1865, nineteen car loads fit freight was received by the company at Atchison to be forwarded. In August a train was loaded with 600,000 pounds of merchandise for Salt Lake City. Butterfield had a large and expensive outfit. "Some idea of the cost of operating an overland transportation line may be had when it is known that work oxen in the summer of 1865 cost in Atchison $160 to $170 a yoke. The company bought for the line 1200 mules, the most of them being purchased in St. Louis." But the Butterfield company had no monopoly of the route. The government used it for its supply trains, other companies and individuals engaged in the overland business sent trains over it and much of the emigration to Pike's Peak and California went over the new trail. No statistics are obtainable but a rushing business must have been done for a time. Trouble soon came to the Butterfield Trail in the shape of assaults from the Indians. In November, 1865, a train was attacked by Indians "between Chalk Bluff station and Denver", and from that time on the line was never free from danger. It became necessary to send out a guard with every coach. In March, 1866, Butterfield sold out to his rival, the Holiday Overland & Express Co., which had been operating on the northern route, and after a few months Holiday in turn sold out to Wells, Fargo & Co. This company suffered heavily from the Indians but kept up the business till the railroad was completed; then the freight, passenger, mail and express business went to the railroad, and the Smoky Hill trail ceased to be a factor in overland transportation. The old trail can still be traced across the county. Leaving the Hackberry bottoms it sweeps past the base of Castle Rock and strikes out boldly across the high and dry prairie. On such trails watering places at frequent distances are a necessity and one such is found at the old Grannall Spring on section 29-14-27 where the trail crosses Indian creek. This section, still untouched by the plow, is now enclosed in a cattle ranch; and the spring is walled up with concrete and furnishes water for a considerable number of cattle. The trail first strikes the Smoky just north of the bridge on the Grainfield-Gove City-Shields county road. It crosses Plum creek just above its mouth and continues up the river as straight as the lay of the land will permit. The river in its long sweeping curves is sometimes close at hand, sometimes a mile away. Where the trail strikes the river about a mile east of Jerome was the Chalk Bluff station. The trail goes right across the townsite of Jerome; it runs close to the old Swede Church, and Monument station is on the river bank within sight of Monument Rocks from which it took its name. Occasionally the settler's plow has obliterated the trail but most of that part of the county where the trail runs is still pasture land and the old track is soon found again. In crossing the flats sometimes the trail becomes dim and hard to follow, but in broken ground and the crossings of ravines its ruts and gullies stand out prominently. Sometimes the trail seems to narrow to a single pair of ruts but sometimes there are a score of them. The elements have dealt lightly with the old trail; though laid out sixty years ago it can still be followed with an automobile with very little difficulty; and indeed for some miles along the river it is the main traveled road to this day. Of the stations few traces are to be found. At Grannall Spring no remains of buildings are to be seen, though there may once have been some dug-outs, in the creek bank. At Chalk Bluff and Monument are some pits, and mounds on the river bank to mark the location of the old dugouts, and sod houses; and there were some stone buildings at Monument which were afterward despoiled by the settlers to get materials for their dwellings. One of the old time freighters, John A. Himebaugh, has written of his experiences in the publications of the Kansas Historical Society. He says: "Our outfit was loaded with shelled corn in sacks for the stage line, our route was what was called the 'Smoky Hill route'; this was the overland line of the 'Holiday Stage Co.' of Denver. They ran a daily six horse stage each way, heavy Concord coaches, if water was obtainable change stations for fresh horses was had about every 12 or 15 miles. This season (1867) the plains Indians were very bad and troublesome, so the United States soldiers were distributed all along the line to protect the lives of stage passengers, freighters and emigrants going to and from the mountains. A squad of soldiers were stationed at every stage station and at certain of such places quite a post or garrison was maintained; from two to six soldiers rode with every stage coach. The army officers would not allow a stage coach to leave a station without the proper number of soldiers and when a freight outfit came to one of these stations we were required to wait till not less than eighty men were ready to move. But bull whackers did not like to be bunched up too closely, so soon after leaving we scattered out, as bull whackers were always well armed and were never afraid of Indians." Those wishing to know more about the old stage coach days will find something interesting in such books as Root's, referred to above, Mark Twain's "Roughing It" and Albert Richardson's "Beyond the Mississippi." It may be of interest to know what became of Butterfield. After selling out the Overland Dispatch he went to Hot Springs, Ark., and built a street car line and was killed in a fight there, by a blow from a neck yoke. He seems to have tried to talk to the Arkansas man as he would to one of his own mules on the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, and the Arkansas man would not stand for it. Additional Comments: History of Gove County, Kansas by W. P. Harrington Gove City, Kan. 1930 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ks/gove/history/1930/historyo/butterfi7ms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/ksfiles/ File size: 9.0 Kb