This Block was the Site of the Stage Station

Before Butterfield, El Paso already had a stage line. Henry Skillman won a contract in 1851 to carry mail from San Antonio to Santa Fe by way of El Paso, sending his first mail on November 3. In 1857 George H. Giddings and James Birch began the San Antonio-San Diego line, said to be the first American transcontinental mail and passenger service. The 1,476-mile run took about twenty-seven days, and a ticket with meals cost $200.

What the plaque says

This block was the site of the stage station of the Southern Overland Mail line which connected St. Louis and San Francisco with a semi-weekly stage and mail service, 1858-1861. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Magoffin Home State Historic Site — 0.8 mi
  A U-shaped adobe of the 1870s in central El Paso that joins Mexican building to an Anglo plan, closed for restoration through 2027 while its visitor center stays open.
• Chamizal National Memorial — 2.1 mi
  A park on land the Rio Grande once put in dispute, where a century-old border quarrel between the United States and Mexico was settled by treaty and a new concrete channel.
• Ysleta Mission (Corpus Christi de la Ysleta del Sur) — 11 mi
  The Tigua mission church at Ysleta, rebuilt in 1908 around the walls, bell and Santo Entierro that came through fire, its interior painted with rain clouds and corn.
• Tigua Indian Cultural Center, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo — 11 mi
  The cultural center of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, the Tigua nation that has lived in the Mission Valley of El Paso since 1682 and keeps its own history here.

More markers nearby

• Hotel Paso Del Norte — steps away
• Felix Martinez — steps away
• Pioneer Plaza — steps away
• El Paso's Chinese Community — steps away