Stagecoach Days in San Diego County

The first stage route through the San Diego backcountry was carved out by Cooke's Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War. By the time the battalion arrived barefoot, bedraggled, and utterly wearied in San Diego, hostilities were over.

The only action they saw on their westward march was the "Battle of the Bulls" in Arizona...a brief but painful skirmish with a herd of longhorns. Nevertheless, they arrived triumphant, having opened a passage from desert to Pacific, a goal which had long been an obsession with the Mormon Church.

Ten years later, the U.S. government pressed this route into service carrying mail and passengers overland to San Diego. From Vallecito, the stage route climbed Oriflamme Canyon into the Cuyamacas. This stretch of trail was so steep and rugged that passengers were obliged to disembark and traverse it mule-back. Thus, the line came to be called the "Jackass Mail." At its peak, it generated $601 in postage, while costing $196,000 to operate.

When Butterfield took over the stage, he bent the route out of Vallecito northward, through San Felipe Valley and on up to Warner's, bypassing San Diego.

During the tensions of the Civil War years, the southern route was discontinued entirely. The Tale of the Overland Stage passed into the north, where Charlie Parkhurst was gaining renown, driving the six-horse teams across the High Sierras with nerves of steel and the skill to bring even the wildest animals under control. Not until 1879 would it be discovered that the famous whip was a woman, Charlie's long-held secret revealed by her death.

Meanwhile, the discovery of gold in the mountains east of San Diego brought the rumble of stagecoach wheels once again to these parts.

On March 1, 1870, gold quartz from the Washington Mine was first displayed in San Diego. So great was the resulting influx of miners that a twice-weekly stage began running through the mountains that same spring.

In July, a second line was started by William Tweed. The first line soon folded, and for nearly two years, Bill Tweed had the stagecoach business to himself.

Tweed charged what he liked and ran things his own way until Edward Stokes arrived on the scene with a rival stage and a mail contract. Travel between San Diego and Julian became quite exciting as competition between the two lines developed into a bitter feud.

One passenger recalled a ride to Julian in which her stage encountered a coach from the rival line blocking the narrow road ahead. The other driver wouldn't make room for them to pass until her driver began cutting pieces from the rival stage with his six-shooter. That persuaded the other driver alright, especially when he noticed the pieces were being chipped off the seat right next to where he was perched.

When Stoke's line appeared, Tweed cut his fare to ten dollars. Stokes matched him. Fares dropped to eight dollars, then to four dollars, and eventually fell to fifty cents. When Tweed threatened to haul passengers without charge and throw in free meals, the rivals finally agreed to fix the round-trip fare at five dollars.

But their rivalry found renewed expression as every trip down the mountain now became a race between the two lines.

With horns sounding, drivers cursing, and whips swinging, the stages careened side by side through the Cuyamacas, providing a major source of entertainment for everyone who stood safely off to the sidelines. Passengers arrived in San Diego bruised and shaken, but wide awake. And never more glad to have reached their destination.

Robin Hewitt, 1989