Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861

Brighton was older than the stage line that passed it. Its settlers came largely from Brighton, Tennessee, and named the place for home, and a post office called Brighton has operated since 1852, six years before the first coach. The James H. M. Smith relay station stood just north of the community. The sign stands beside a fence about 12 feet from Highway F, which was Old Highway 13 until it was renamed. Brighton is still unincorporated, at the meeting of Missouri Routes 13 and 215, eleven miles south of Bolivar and about fifteen miles north of Springfield.

What the plaque says

Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861 The James H. M. Smith Relay Station in Polk County, 119 1/2 miles from the Tipton Terminus, stood 2 miles north of Brighton. Molloy Station in Brighton was a stop for a time after the telegraph line reached there in Dec., 1859.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• History Museum on the Square — 19 mi
  Springfield's history museum on Park Central Square, on Route 66 itself, with a gallery on how the highway got its number here in 1926 and another on the Osage, Kickapoo and Delaware.
• Wilson's Creek National Battlefield — 25 mi
  The farm valley southwest of Springfield where the first major Civil War battle west of the Mississippi was fought on August 10, 1861, and where Nathaniel Lyon became the first Union general killed.

More markers nearby

• Polk County — 9.7 mi
• Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861 — 10 mi
• Dallas County — 18 mi
• Springfield — 23 mi