The Santa Fe Trail was perhaps the best known way West, but there were other trails...like the Smokey Hill Trail

Smoky Hill Trail/Butterfield Overland Stage.

The Smoky Hill Trail ran west from Atchison on the Missouri River to Fort Riley in central Kansas and on to Denver. The trail was opened in 1859 as the shortest route to the new gold fields in western Kansas Territory, now Colorado. The two major routes, one along the Platte River valley in Nebraska and the other along the Arkansas River in southern Kansas, were approximately 80 to 90 miles longer than the route along the Smoky Hill River. Although a more direct route to the golden western territory, this new road cut through the heart of Indian hunting lands then teeming with buffalo. Indians, including Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, Kiowa, Comanche, and Pawnee resisted this intrusion into their territory. Because of the danger, few gold miners utilized the route. However, its value for moving people and supplies was promising, so the federal government surveyed the route during April and May of 1860 from Atchison to Denver. William Green Russell directed the survey crews. This survey, along with two other surveys conducted by competing merchant interests, found the route stable, with sufficient water and timber available, and financially viable. The one definite drawback determined equally by all parties was the Indians’ desire and willingness to keep the settlers out of the area at all costs. The only way for the trail to be useful was for the military to provide protection. This period was also at the height of the Civil War, and military participation was scarce (Hafen, 1952).

It was merchant David A. Butterfield who first dared to try systematic stagecoach and freight service along the Smoky Hill Trail. Butterfield founded the Butterfield Overland Dispatch (BOD), which should not be confused with the more famous Butterfield Overland Mail headed by John Butterfield that followed the southern route to California. David Butterfield sponsored another survey of the route to build permanent stations. The chief surveyor was Lieutenant Julian R. Fitch. He selected the station sites and was followed by Isaac Eton and his construction teams to build the station houses and stables.

The BOD began freight service in June 1865, and stages began running in September of that same year. Indian problems began almost immediately, and Butterfield requested military help. General Greenville M. Dodge traveled the route from Denver to Atchison and was impressed with the shortness and practicality of this road. He assured Butterfield that the Army would provide assistance. There was already one Fort on the Smoky Hill Trail, and that was Fort Ellsworth, which would become Fort Harker in 1864. This was at the junction of the Smoky Hill Trail and the Fort Riley-Fort Larned Military Road. General Dodge sent additional troops further west and established Fort Fletcher (which would become Fort Hays) and Camp Pond Creek (which became Fort Wallace) all of which was in place by October of 1865 (Oliva, 1998). The stage and trail operations were sold three times in two years and eventually ended in the ownership of Wells Fargo Company before being superseded by the Union Pacific Railroad, which became the Kansas Pacific Railroad, finally in 1869.