Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861

The building the plaque says still stands is Nichols Tavern, which a Warsaw history traces to the 1840s and follows through later lives as the Farmers Hotel and Newman's Hotel. From 1858 to 1861 it was a daily mail and stage stop on the Butterfield line, and part of that early structure survives inside Reser's Funeral Home. The coaches here carried the New York Herald's Waterman L. Ormsby on the first westbound run, the only passenger to ride the whole route. His verdict on arrival: "I now know what Hell is like. I've just had 24 days of it."

What the plaque says

Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861 Warsaw, in Benton County, 55 miles from the Tipton Terminus, was a relay and meal station. Accommodations were provided by the Lemon, later Campbell House, and Nichols Tavern. Its building still stands.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harry S Truman State Park — 3.6 mi
  A 1983 park on a peninsula in Truman Lake, the Osage River reservoir first planned as Kaysinger Bluff, with a marina, beach and glades found in no other state park.

More markers nearby

• Warsaw — steps away
• Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861 (Quincy) — 17 mi
• Hickory County — 21 mi
• Osceola — 22 mi