Tipton

Tipton's best-known landmark arrived more than a century after the stagecoaches left. In 1968 Ewald Fischer, a Tipton native, built his billiard table factory here, and Fischer Manufacturing claimed to be the largest maker of pool tables in the country. The town water tower was painted as an eight-ball. Spalding bought the company, and the plant closed after Spalding sold it in 1976 to Ebonite Billiard, a Fuqua subsidiary. The tower was repainted, residents wanted their eight-ball back, and it was painted again. It is generally called the world's largest eight-ball.

What the plaque says

Tipton Butterfield Overland Mail Terminus Historic town in the annals of western transportation, Tipton, in 1858-59, was the eastern stagecoach terminus of the famous Butterfield Overland Mail. N. Y. expressman John Butterfield (1801-69), under contract to carry mail and passengers between St. Louis and San Francisco over the Southern Route on a twice-a-week, 25-day schedule, used Tipton as stage terminus because the Pacific R. R. (Mo. Pac.), completed to this point, could be used for the first 160 miles. The first westbound mail and passengers carried by Butterfield stage left Tipton, Sept. 16, 1858, and arrived in San Francisco 24 days later after traveling some 2,700 miles across rivers, deserts, mountains, and through hostile Indian territory. At one time Butterfield had 1,500 horses and mules, 100 coaches, relay stations about 20 miles apart, and, at the peak, 2,000 employees. Tipton was replaced as terminus when the railroad reached nearby Syracuse in the summer of 1859. In 1861, because of the Civil War, traffic was transferred from the Southern to the Central Route. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Tipton Butterfield Overland Mail Terminus (Continued from other side) Butterfield coaches traveled south from Tipton to Arkansas making stops at the following relay stations in Missouri: Relay Station Nearest Town Today County Shackelford's Syracuse Morgan Munhollen's Florence Morgan Burn's Cole Camp Benton Warsaw Warsaw Benton Bailey's Fairfield Benton Quincy Quincy Hickory Yoast's Elkton Hickory Bolivar Bolivar Polk J. H. Smith's N. of Brighton Polk Molloy's S. of Brighton Polk Evans N. of Springfield Greene Springfield Springfield Greene Ashmore's N. W. corner of Christian J. I. Smith's N. E. corner of Barry Crouch's Cassville Barry Cassville (not a relay station but a stop) Harbin's Seligman Barry Tipton was laid out by William Tipton Seeley, 1858, shortly before it became the Butterfield Overland Mail terminus. Near Tipton is the State Training School for Negro Girls, opened, 1916 Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Katy Trail State Park — 25 mi
  Two hundred forty miles of the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas rail bed between Machens and Clinton, mostly along the Missouri River, first opened in 1990 at Rocheport, where it runs through the railroad's stone tunnel.
• Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — 29 mi
  Karst on the edge of Columbia: a boardwalk through a natural rock tunnel to the Devil's Icebox sinkholes, over a cave that is the only known home of the pink planarian.

More markers nearby

• Butterfield Overland Mail in Missouri - 1858-1861 — 4.9 mi
• Morgan County — 16 mi
• Boonville — 21 mi
• Boonville/Franklin — 23 mi