Vallecito Stage Depot (Station)

The bronze on the door here honors James E. Birch, who never rode the line it credits him with. He won the first transcontinental mail contract in July 1857, left California in August to finish a house in Massachusetts, and drowned off Cape Hatteras on September 12, twelve days after his first mails reached San Diego. The quotation marks the state cast around "Jackass" on the landmark plaque preserve an insult: a San Francisco editor coined it to belittle the mules that carried passengers across the desert.

What the plaque says

Vallecito Stage Station Dedicated to the memory of James E. Birch "The man who put an empire on wheels" founder and proprietor of the first official trans-continental overland mail stage line in the United States. The San Antonio-San Diego Overland Mail of 1857 — 1861 and those brave drivers who handeled the reins Vallecito Stage Station A reconstruction (1934) of Vallecito Stage Station at the edge of the Great Colorado Desert. Original was built 1852. Important stop on first official transcontinental route, serving the San Diego - San Antonio ("Jackass") mail line (1857 - 1859), the Butterfield Overland Stage Line and the Southern Route emigrant caravans. State Registered Landmark No. 304 Marker placed by San Diego County Board of Supervisors and the Historical Markers Committee. Erected 1956

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Anza-Borrego Desert State Park — 8.7 mi
  Six hundred thousand acres of badlands, slot canyons, and palm oases, and the biggest state park in California.
• Borrego Springs — 19 mi
  A dark-sky town ringed by state park, with 130 metal beasts loose in the desert around it.

More markers nearby

• Box Canyon — 6.0 mi
• Palm Springs — 8.6 mi
• Pedro Fages Trail — 11 mi
• San Felipe Valley and Stage Station — 12 mi