Kirby Sanders traces the Butterfield Stagecoach route

Kirby Sanders came to Northwest Arkansas to report for the Morning News about a decade ago, He worked briefly as a copy editor before a slot opened for a reporter. He loved to take out the unnecessary words and help reporters focus on the main point.
When he started to report, he expected those of us still stuck on the copy desk to do the same for him. His thoroughness in gathering facts should have made us realize that he would write a book someday based on thorough research. I look forward to reading his guide to the Butterfield Trail, however, not only because Sanders wrote it but also because I live on the Butterfield Trail route in south Fayetteville. I'll never be able to travel the whole route myself, unless someone gives me four horses and a stagecoach. But living on a historic road keeps a person thinking of the past and of the future. Without understanding the past and the present fully, one really can't visualize the future.

New book details historic mail route
BY DUSTIN TRACY Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Friday, September 12, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/69030/
SPRINGDALE — A modern-day guide to the Butterfield Stagecoach Trail is now available to the public.
One hundred and fifty years after John Butterfield first drove the mail route from Tipton, Mo., to San Francisco, the Heritage Trail Partners announced Thursday that the first volume of the “Drivers Guide to the Butterfield Overland Mail Route” is available for purchase.
Outside Fitzgerald Station on Arkansas 265, one of the original stops in the route, publication writer and researcher Kirby Sanders of Fayetteville showed off the sleek copies of the book.
“Anyone can pick it up and drive the route,” Sanders said.
Sanders started discussing the book in 2000 with John McLarty, president of Heritage Trail Partners. The men worked together to plot out the actual trail, not just the stops along the trail, throughout Arkansas. Sanders said in 2002 they decided they shouldn’t just focus on Arkansas and Missouri, but they should map out the entire route from Tipton to San Francisco, a 2, 700-mile journey that goes through seven states.
“I like to give myself small tasks,” Sanders said with a smile.
Sanders said he worked the last six years researching historical, modern and topographical maps to determine the exact route drivers of the stagecoach took in 1858. Sanders said he had to put himself in a stagecoach driver’s mindset looking at different geographical elements and figuring out how in 1858 a stagecoach weighing roughly 1,500 pounds and with four horses would best travel from Missouri to California. He said once that was done, he felt guide followers would have a more authentic experience.
“You get to experience not only where the stage coach stopped but a little bit of what the journey was like,” Sanders said.
He then used the exact route to put together the book, which shows people how to use modern roads to follow the trail. Eighty percent of the time they will be on the same path John Butterfield was on 150 years ago, Sanders said. The other 20 percent has been developed in a way that makes driving the trail impossible. For example, Sanders said part of the trail goes right under Lake Fayetteville.
“So you have to take a little jog down (Arkansas 265),” he said.
Sanders said the first volume includes the trail in Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The publication will have two more volumes covering the other four states. He said those volumes should be published within the next two years.
The book costs $25 and will be available through the Heritage Trail Partners to start. Marilyn Heifner, vice president for the Heritage Trail Partners, said discounts will be available for groups like historical societies, museums and libraries.

McLarty said the Heritage Trail Partners funded the publishing and printing of the book.

Sanders added that major book distributors such as Amazon.coms and Borders will also eventually pick up the publication.

Copyright © 2001-2008 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact: webmaster@nwanews.com