Route of the Southern Overland Mail Line

When the Post Office Department's special agent rode the first eastbound mail through in 1858, he reported the line as nine divisions, and Fort Chadbourne marked the seam between two of them. The Fifth ran from Franklin, now El Paso, 458 miles to the fort in about 126 hours. The Sixth carried on about 283 miles to Colbert's Ferry on the Red River in about 65. Together the two made up roughly 740 miles of the line's 2,795.

What the plaque says

Route of the Southern Overland Mail Line One mile southeast to Fort Chadbourne, a station on the Butterfield mail and stage line, which linked St. Louis and San Francisco, 1858 - 1861. The fort was established in 1852, occupied until its surrender to state forces in 1861, and garrisoned at times after the Civil War.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Chadbourne — 0.7 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 18 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Abilene State Park — 24 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 27 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.

More markers nearby

• Fort Chadbourne — steps away
• Southern Overland Mail, 1858-1861 — 2.7 mi
• Site of Old Communities of Mazeland and Wilmeth — 8.8 mi
• Valley Creek Station — 10 mi