On September 16, 1858, a stagecoach left Tipton, headed west. It was the first run of the Butterfield Overland Mail, carrying passengers as well as mail. It arrived in San Francisco on October 10.
Stagecoaches left Tipton twice a week, and the normal schedule called for arrival in San Francisco 25 days later.
(Let’s pause here for just a moment to consider the iron constitution of any who rode a stagecoach for 25 consecutive days.)
Inaugurated two years before the Pony Express, the Butterfield Mail was a big success. With relay stations, where horses and drivers could be changed, placed about twenty miles apart, the firm at its peak had 100 stagecoaches, 1,500 horses and mules, and 2,000 employees.
Tipton was chosen as Butterfield’s starting point because that’s how far west the railroad came from St. Louis. By the summer of 1869, less than a year after that first run, railroad tracks reached Syracuse, Missouri, some six miles further west. Butterfield immediately abandoned Tipton for Syracuse, taking prosperity with it.
From the looks of its downtown today (see photo), Tipton has never recovered.