Missouri to Arizona via Butterfield Overland route

Stagecoach nears Tombstone

Photos by Ignacio Ibarra / Staff
Rick Hamby, wearing red scarf, chats with Butterfield stagecoach driver Cole Brooks, holding reins, as they near end of 62-day trek.

D.C., Rick Hamby's horse, is one of about a dozen mounts that made the journey from Springfield, Mo. The horses will be auctioned off on Sunday to raise funds to benefit Good Samaritan Boys Ranch and other organizations.

TOMBSTONE - The world looks different from atop a mule-drawn stagecoach. At 5 miles per hour, you get a better sense of place. A greater appreciation for the vastness of the land that makes up the United States than you would zipping through the landscape at 75 miles per hour.

At least that's the way Rick Hamby sees things as he nears his last stop on the 62nd day of a cross-country stagecoach run, the first by a Butterfield Overland stagecoach in more that 100 years.

The "Stagecoach Journey" began at the site of the original Butterfield Overland Stage Depot in Springfield, Mo., on March 24.

The journey has taken Hamby, of West Plains, Mo., and partner Peter Kline through Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The journey ends this morning in Tombstone when he and Kline, and a few friends from across the country, make their grand entrance in the rebuilt stagecoach during the 23rd annual Wyatt Earp Days festivities.

"In a world of fast food, fast cars and fast lanes, convenience stores, quick stops and everything, slowing down to 5 miles per hour is about a lot more than speed," he said. "It teaches you patience, and patience is a lost virtue these days. On this trip our only objective every day has been to be a positive in every life we come in contact with and to go from point A to point B everyday."

He said the trip has also taught him about the strength and endurance of the American pioneers who made the trek west when the stage was the height of transportation technology.

In a stagecoach, or any wagon for that matter, a 1-foot-deep cut across the trail can become a barrier that can stop progress for hours.

Hamby said the trail he and his companions have taken at times followed that of the Mormon Battalion on its journey across the Southwest more than 150 years ago. That 1846 expedition faced many hardships, including mountains that forced it to ease its wagons down the slopes.

Mountains are still a tough obstacle, which is why Hamby was forced to scratch an appearance in Bisbee Wednesday when he chose to avoid the Mule Mountains and take Davis Road to Tombstone instead.

"This is as close as we can come to doing as they used to do as far as the speed, the dealing with the livestock and the mechanics of dealing with a stagecoach," he said. "We've been on ranches where there were no roads. We've crossed rivers where there were no bridges. But in the old days when they crossed these rivers and these plains . . . it was tough. I admire them so much. They were strong people."

More than a dozen riders, students and staff from the Good Samaritan Boys Ranch in Brighton, Mo., accompanied the stagecoach on the last leg of its journey along Davis Road from Douglas. The Boys Ranch has been a part of the journey for more than a year, providing the mules that have hauled the stagecoach nearly 1,400 miles.

On Sunday, the mules, along with the other livestock and much of the tack, will be auctioned off in Tombstone. The proceeds of the sale will benefit the Boys Ranch.

Hamby said the journey has also tried to raise funds and awareness for The Children's Miracle Network, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and the Special Olympics.

Involving people, especially the young people, is as important an accomplishment as completing the journey, and one of three goals Hamby said he's set for himself on this trip.

He said he was fortunate enough to grow up on a ranch and ride and rodeo all his life.

"If a real cowboy would stop and take the time, when I was a kid, to show me how to dally just a little better, or how to rope a little better, it meant something to me. And I always told myself that when I got older, that if I had the opportunity to share some of that savvy with someone else, I was going to do it," he said.

"I also wanted to do something to help preserve the history of the West, and I had a selfish reason, too: I wanted to see what it was like."

Now that he knows, he won't give it up. After the auction, Hamby says he'll get the stagecoach, now in its third century of service, ready for yet another trip.

He said he'd announce the details this weekend, but as he got ready to mount his horse, D.C., and catch up to the stage, he said something that sounded like, "California, here I come."

* Contact Ignacio Ibarra at (520) 432-2766 or at nacho1@mindspring.com

All content copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 AzStarNet, Arizona Daily Star and its wire services and suppliers and may not be republished without permission. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the expressed written consent of Arizona Daily Star or AzStarNet is prohibited.