The Butterfield Overland Mail was the first successful overland mail route linking St. Louis, Missouri, and San Francisco, California, creating a reliable transportation and communication system between East and West and serving as a forerunner of the Pony Express and Transcontinental Railroad. In this part of the county, much of its route followed the well-defined path used by thousands of emigrants and gold-seekers traveling westward during the previous decade. The arduous 2,700-mile wilderness journey between St. Louis and San Francisco was always completed within 25 days, as required by John Butterfield's federal mail contract. That six-year contract, awarded to the wealthy and popular businessman John Butterfield, was cut short by the onset of the Civil War in 1861, though some hailed the service as one of the greatest events of the age. Pinery Station, named for nearby stands of pine, was the highest Butterfield station at 5,700 feet and the only ruin of an original company-built station standing close to a national highway. Especially valued for its grazing land and dependable water, it was one of stations spaced an average of 20 miles apart, and for eleven months from September 1858 to august 1859 coaches stopped there regularly for water, food, rest, fresh mule teams, and protection. Drivers and passengers shared the station with the keeper, cooks, blacksmith, freighters, gold seekers, adventurers, and settlers, and after the station was abandoned in favor of a more protected route serving forts farther south, its limestone walls still sheltered freighters, soldiers, drovers, outlaws, and emigrants. Speed was essential to the service: a Celerity coach traveled day and night, averaging 120 miles a day while carrying up to nine passengers, essential baggage, and 12,000 letters, drawn by six horses or mules. Similar to later mud-wagons, these leather-lined coaches were built for rough mountains and desert country, painted or varnished red or dark bottle green, lit inside by wire pattern candle lamps, and one hundred were built in 1857 at a cost of $1,500 each for use in the service in 1858.