Susan Dragoo

Finding the Butterfield: A Journey Through Time in Indian Territory takes the reader through the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, both in the late 1850s as a passenger on the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach and in the 2020s as an explorer seeking the remnants of the old trail in present-day Oklahoma. The Butterfield Overland Mail route of 1858-1861 was the United States' first transcontinental stagecoach route, running from St. Louis and Memphis more than 2,800 miles to San Francisco, delivering the mail in less than twenty-five days, a remarkable performance for overland travel in the day. In 2023, the route was designated a National Historic Trail by the federal government, and the National Park Service is currently in the process of developing an interpretive plan for the entire trail. This book is the outcome of eight years of researching and exploring the two hundred miles of the trail which crossed the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, in present-day southeastern Oklahoma. This segment brims with historical treasure both in the sense of the physical remains of the trail and the insights into this pivotal time in the lives of the Choctaws and Chickasaws between removal and the Civil War. Building on the work done by historians in the 1930s and 1950s, this work updates the knowledge about the trail and its current state, also providing a guide for others to explore the old trail for themselves