Butterfield's Overland Mail

Butterfield's stops in Arkansas were small places. The Memphis road to Fort Smith ran through Madison, Des Arc, Atlanta (now Old Austin), Cadron, Plumer's Station, Hurricane, Norristown, Dardanelle, Stinnett's Station, Paris and Charleston, and the Potts home at Pottsville served as a way station. The first westbound stagecoach left Tipton, Missouri, on September 16, 1858, reached its first Arkansas stop on the 18th and rolled into Fort Smith at 2:00 a.m. on the 19th. From 1860 the stage crossed the Arkansas River at Van Buren on its way into town.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge — 6.5 mi
  A 7,000-acre refuge on an island of former farmland made when the Corps cut off a bend of the Arkansas River in 1954, with winter ducks, geese and eagles and a 14-mile auto tour.
• Lake Dardanelle State Park — 9.1 mi
  A park on a 34,300-acre Arkansas River reservoir at Russellville, with aquarium exhibits and the story of the Norristown ferry crossing used in the removal of five nations.
• Petit Jean State Park — 11 mi
  Arkansas's first state park, founded in 1923, with a Civilian Conservation Corps lodge, Cedar Falls and a Trail of Tears overlook on a canyon-cut mountain.
• Mount Nebo State Park — 12 mi
  Arkansas's second state park, on a flat-topped mesa above Dardanelle: a Victorian summer town, a town run by women in 1924, CCC cabins and a Trail of Tears view.

More markers nearby

• Potts Inn — steps away
• Potts Family in the Civil War — steps away
• Potts Tavern — steps away
• Action at Dardanelle — 6.6 mi