Map of the Butterfield Overland Trail mail route through the southwestern United States, 1857

This historic 1857 map depicts the legendary Butterfield Overland Mail Route, the first transcontinental stagecoach mail service linking St. Louis and Memphis in the east with San Francisco in the west. Originally engraved by Schönberg & Co., the map is drawn at a scale of 1:6,000,000, showing the vast sweep of the southern mail corridor across the American frontier.

The route winds through key waypoints of 19th-century expansion—Fort Smith, Fort Belknap, El Paso, Tucson, Yuma, Los Angeles—before reaching the Pacific coast. Relief is indicated by delicate hachures, suggesting the rugged mountain passes and arid deserts that defined the journey. Originally printed for conductors, agents, and station managers in an 1858–1859 Overland Mail Company handbook, the map is both a functional guide and a testament to early American enterprise.

Commissioned by Congress in 1857, the Butterfield route operated until 1861, when the outbreak of the Civil War made southern passage unsafe. It was the brainchild of John Butterfield, founder of the Overland Mail Company and father of Union General Daniel Butterfield.

Today, this map endures as a striking visual document of communication, endurance, and ambition in the antebellum United States. It captures not only the geography of the frontier but also the determination to connect a growing nation from ocean to ocean.