Fayetteville History

Dedication of Butterfield Trail Marker

City, state and federal officials attended the unveiling of a new interpretive marker commemorating a remnant of the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach route.

Federal officers of the National Trails System also held a meeting with the public to discuss the upcoming assessment of the Butterfield Overland Mail Route for potential inclusion as a national trail.

Aaron Mahr, superintendent of the Intermountain Region, and Frank Norris, a historian for the National Trails System, talked with about 40 people at the Fayetteville Town Center about the process that the National Park Service will follow during the next three years to document the Butterfield Route and its resources.

Mahr said a congressional decision to award National Trail status will rest on three criteria:

• A National Trail must follow an established historic route.
• The trail must have national historical significance.
• The trail must have potential for public recreational opportunities with historic and heritage resources along the route.

The Butterfield Overland Mail Route started in Tipton, Mo., and Memphis, Tenn., and joined at Fort Smith before heading west through the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California before finishing at San Francisco. The transcontinental stage line only lasted three years but put in place the organizational foundation for what would later inspire the Pony Express and the transcontinental railroads.

Read more about the Butterfield Overland Mail Route.

Norris described the questions that he and the park service would be researching to determine whether the trail meets the above criteria:

• First, where was the route's right-of-way? Can it be determined?
• What are the trail's major resources? Are there stations, stables, ferries, museums, parks or other contributing factors still along the route?
• How much of the trail qualifies as significant? The Butterfield operation shifted its routes in a couple of places. Is each shift worthy of inclusion?
• What should the route be called?
• How best can the trail be managed if it is designated a national trail?
• How much public support is there for preservation of the route?

There are 20 designated national trails in the United States so far, ranging in length from the 60-mile-long Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail to the 2,000-mile-long Oregon Trail. One historic trail, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, already comes through Fayetteville.

Mount Sequoyah

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Originally called East Mountain, the largest mountain in Fayetteville was renamed Mount Sequoyah when the hilltop was given to the state Methodist Assembly for use as a religious retreat. It was named in honor of the inventor of the Cherokee syllabary, Sequoyah, and opened for its first summer assembly in 1923. The center is surrounded by Skyline Drive.

Nearly 70 acres on the east side of the mountain was bought back by the city in 2003 to create a city park called Mount Sequoyah Woods.

The city's first water treatment plant and water reservoirs were built on the west face of the mountain between Summit Avenue and Oklahoma Way, high enough to provide water pressure to the top floors of Old Main on the University of Arkansas campus. The reservoirs were removed in 1998 and turned into a city park called Mount Sequoyah Gardens.

The rest of Mount Sequoyah extends northeast to Shadowridge Drive.