Butterfield Stage - Historic Visalia Series #2 Traditional Cache
Butterfield Stage - Historic Visalia Series #2
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Size: 
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On the front side of this building (on Main street) was the original Visalia Butterfield Stage Station, which began service in 1958. Once you've made the grab and logged your visit, you can visit the plaque that marks the spot of the stage coach stop on Main Street.
Visalia’s first real contact with the outside world was on October 8, 1858, when the first Butterfield stage, straining to make a record run with the U.S. mail from St. Louis to San Francisco, arrived in town.
Its only passenger was W. L. Ormsby, special correspondent for the New York Herald, who wrote a diary later published in the Herald. It was written in his diary:
"The next town of importance is Visalia, which is 47 miles from White River and about 100 from Tejon, and the first town from Tejon. There are a few adobe houses, and the population is about 500. The place is situated in an oak grove, sometimes called the Four Creeks, which seldom have much water. There are a number of New Yorkers in the town, and I took a glass of lager, which made me feel quite at home."Though it was nearly midnight when we arrived, the news spread rapidly and we soon had a cordial greeting. Before we left they gave us the anvil salute, which was quite new to me. The powder is placed in a hole in one anvil, and a train laid to the edge. A card is then placed over the hole, and another anvil on top of that. The reports were quite as heavy as those of an eight-pounder."This was the first evidence of any enthusiasm along the route since we left Fort Smith, and the rousing cheers they gave us as we drove off at 11:50 p.m. on Friday, the 8th of October, thought to be remembered in the history of the town, so I here immortalize them."
It is believed that the stage station was housed in a hotel known both as the Exchange House and the Overland Hotel, both on the north side of what is now Main Street. The horses used were stabled and corralled in an area across the main street, south of the hotel.
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(Decrypt)
Zntargvp
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