|
THE WIRE
ROAD
The Message Tree Staff
Since
that very first issue of THE MESSAGE TREE in June
of 2001, we have brought to your computer many
tales about the Wilderness Road of the Ozarks, the
Boston Road, and some of the other routes that
played such an important part of the development of
this region, but we have failed to address one very
important route that not only played such an
important part in the history of the Ozarks, but
also in the great westward expansion, The Old Wire
Road.
We
have received e-mails from you inquiring if the
Wire Road and the Wilderness Road were one and the
same but there is a great difference.
Named
for the telegraph wire that followed the route, The
Wire Road, like so many of the original trails
throughout the region, was not constructed as a
single road from St. Louis to Fort Smith, but
rather several trails linked together to form a
contiguous path. When the first explorers of
European extraction left the outpost on the
Mississippi River that was to grow to become what
we now know as the city of St Louis, the "Gateway
To The West," they found the river valleys to the
west nearly impassable. One author wrote in his
journal that the trees in the Meramec valley were
of such great girth that several men with their
arms outstretched and hands joined were required to
reach around the trunks of the great trees. He also
wrote that the wild grape vines hanging from the
mammoth trees were themselves as large in diameter
as one might expect a tree to be back home in his
native France. So dense was the forest growth that
our intrepid explorers found it fortuitous to
follow the trails that the first Americans, the
indigenous peoples of Missouri, had blazed along
the same routes that wild game had followed for
untold millennia.
Historical
reports tell us that many of the trappers and long
hunters that worked in the Ozarks as well as the
traders that did business with the Native Americans
used these trails that linked the central Ozarks to
the White settlement at St. Louis. Later as
settlers pressed forth from that stepping off point
located at the point where the Missouri river joins
the Mississippi, they too found these existing
trails suitable to their westward progression. Like
the Wilderness Road, these trails followed, in some
places the high ridges that naturally divided the
various water sheds, in some places the trails
would drop down into the river valleys and ford the
streams only to climb back up to another ridge top.
Still yet in other places the trails would cross
through upland Savanna, broad ridge tops where
there was plenty of grasses for the settlers
livestock to graze and large trees to provide a
canopy under which to escape the heat of the summer
sun.
In
1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent the first telegraph
message from Baltimore to Washington, reading,
"What hath God wrought." This simple method of
communication that allowed messages to be sent over
vast distances quickly and efficiently, at least by
the standards of technology of those days, was soon
accepted and construction of the first
telecommunications infrastructure in the Unites
States began. Starting in 1846 from New York City,
telegraph lines were constructed connecting the
frontier to the cities of the east, and these lines
finally reached St. Louis on December 22, 1847 and
line was built from Springfield Missouri to
Fayetteville Arkansas, in 1859-1860. The route
through the Ozarks that had originally been a game
and Indian trail, that the telegraph line followed
became known as the Wire Road.
But
an even more colorful aspect of this remarkable
route was to begin with the necessity of a means by
which to transport mail from the East Coast to the
rapidly developing West Coast. Prior to 1857 to
mail a letter from New York to San Francisco, the
mail had to be shipped by sailing ship around the
Southernmost tip of South America and back
northward through the Pacific which took weeks, or
the ships could unload the mail at ports in Panama
and ship the cargo overland to another ship which
would carry it on to its destination, in either
case the trip took weeks and was very costly.
Finally the Post Office Department let contracts
out for bid providing for the establishment of an
overland mail route that would connect the East
Coast to the cities of California. John Butterfield
was awarded the contract in 1957 with the
stipulation that the plan be implemented in a
year.
|
|
At Pea Ridge Arkansas, you can see
remnants of the Wire Road
click on image to larger photo
The Message Tree staff
photo
|
Frantically
he devised a plan whereby the mail would be carried
by railroad to St Louis and then by stagecoach on
west. This plan necessitated the establishment of
200 relay stations along the 2975-mile route. These
stations were located close enough together that a
team of horses or mules could be driven hard and
fast without succumbing to exhaustion then traded
for a fresh, rested team at the next station.
Stations also had to be arranged for or constructed
where the passengers of the stage could find meals
or a place to sleep during the night. The livestock
that pulled the coaches would have to have food and
water and many stretches of the route through the
desert southwest were barren with no grass for
graze or water to drink, so wells had to be dug and
tanks constructed. Arrangements were made for hay
and grain to feed the stock, to be freighted in to
the remote stations. And other than some military
routes through the west, Butterfield had to survey
and in some cases construct his own roads. One of
these stretches of existing trails he choose for
his overland route, was the Wire Road.
|
|
At the Pea Ridge National
Battlefield,
The Historic Elkhorn tavern that was a
station on the
Overland Stage Route still stands as a
monument
to the Wire Road.
The Message Tree staff
photo
|
Soon,
the transcontinental railroad would be completed
and the overland stage would become a memory,
traveling as well as shipping mail by the rail
would be so much more efficient as well as more
comfortable for the traveler. The railroads would
also become the most common user of the telegraph,
constructing wire lines along the rails, so the
telegraph line along the wire road would also
become just a memory. Today historical monuments
proclaim the existence of the Wire Road along its
route, and here in the central Ozarks, one can
still view several buildings, which stood along the
route, that have been preserved. The Ray House on
the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield as well as
the Elkhorn Tavern at Pea Ridge National
Battlefield in Arkansas are two such
landmarks.
But
like so many other aspects of our Western Heritage,
The Butterfield Overland Stage and the Wire Road,
were also a part of our beloved Ozarks.
|
