- Known as the "Oxbow Route" due to its sweeping southern crescent shape, this path was explicitly chosen to bypass winter mountain snows and keep coaches moving twice a week on a grueling 25-day schedule
- The route in Arizona was split into two primary operational segments: the Fourth Division (extending from El Paso, Texas, to Tucson) and the Third Division (extending from Tucson to Yuma and into California)
- Because water dictating survival in the Sonoran Desert, coaches jumped roughly every 20 miles between fortified stone and adobe stations
- The original adobe station was situated in northwest Tucson, and the surviving remains of that historic stagecoach stop form part of the foundation for Li'l Abner's Steakhouse on Silverbell Road
- At Fort Bowie National Historic Site, the history of the Butterfield Overland Stage Line is deeply intertwined with the very reason the fort was built ... The Apache Pass Stage Station was constructed here in July 1858, four years before Fort Bowie existed ... The station was strategically built in this narrow mountain pass between the Chiricahua and Dos Cabezas mountains specifically to secure access to Apache Spring—the only reliable, year-round water source for miles across this stretch of the Sonoran Desert
Comments