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Figure 3: These were the names of the stations given by Goddard Bailey at the beginning of Butterfield’s
Overland Mail Company service in September 1858 and are included in this report.
From: G. Bailey, Special Agent, to Hon. A. V. Brown, P. M. General, Washington, D.C., Appendix A,
Great Overland Mail, Washington, October 18, 1858, The Senate of the United States, Second Session,
Thirty-Fifth Congress, 1858-59, Washington, 1859.

Bailey estimated the distance between Fort Tejon and Los Angeles to be 100 miles.
Kenyon’s distance, measured with a viameter, was 93 miles, 493 yards.
After selecting the trail’s route and station sites through the Southern Overland Cor-
ridor, Kenyon returned to California in June 1858 as Overland Mail Company superin-
tendent for the First Division. The stage stations had to be stocked with horses, mules,
harnesses, food, supplies and wagons, along with other equipment. Fifteen hundred em-
ployees were hired as station masters, superintendents and line riders to keep the trail in
shape; as vaqueros (Mexican cowboys), to take care of the stock; and as stage conductors,
stage drivers and blacksmiths. About 1,000 head of livestock were needed. Many of the
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stage drivers on the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route were chosen from local, experi-
enced stage drivers. One not from California was Kenyon’s brother Tote from Rome, New
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York.
The following four satellite images locate the nine Butterfield Overland Mail Com-
pany stage stations on the present topography of Southern California from the towns of San
Fernando to just north of Bakersfield.

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