Written by Clay Riley – Stagecoaches were the mass transit of their time. This was the primary mode of transportation prior to the arrival of the rail road in this region. The most common category of passengers, were the peddlers or drummers and their sample cases. There was not a direct stage route going through Brown County, but the closest town with major stage line service was Cisco where the Butterfield Stage Lines came through. The local stages were a series of local connecting or feeder stage routes operated primarily by livery stable operators.

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In Brownwood, the line ran from Brownwood to Cisco, to connect to the Butterfield and Wells Fargo or Chidester Lines for other destinations. There were local connections from Brownwood to Comanche and Coleman.

The Brownwood to Cisco stage was run by W.R. Chandler from his Cisco Livery Stable. It had dangers because of stage robbers that preyed upon the stages several times from 1884 to 1887. One such article mentioned, “Brownwood businessman John Rankin telegraphed his wife on her arrival from a trip visiting family, to wait for him in Cisco to pick her up, because of stagecoach robberies between Cisco and Brownwood.”

From Cisco, travelers could connect to Butterfield or Wells Fargo Stage Lines to larger cities or for longer destinations. Passengers crowded into coaches caused conditions that prompted Wells Fargo to post these rules in each coach for passenger behavior. Travelers were expected to maintain certain decorum, as follows:

• Abstinence from liquor is requested, but if you must drink, share the bottle. To do otherwise makes you appear selfish and not neighborly.
• If ladies are present, gentlemen are urged to forego smoking cigars and pipes as the odor of same is repugnant to the gentler sex. Chewing tobacco is permitted, but spit with the wind, not against it.
• Gentlemen must refrain from the use of rough language in the presence of ladies and children.
• Buffalo robes are provided for your comfort in cold weather. Hogging robes will not be tolerated and the offender will be made to ride with the driver.
• Don’t snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger’s shoulder for a pillow; he or she may not understand and friction may result.
• Firearms may be kept on your person for use in emergencies. Do not fire them for pleasure or shoot at wild animals as the sound riles the horses.
• In the event of runaway horses remain calm. Leaping from the coach in panic will leave you injured, at the mercy of the elements, hostile Indians and hungry coyotes.
• Forbidden topics of conversation are: stagecoach robberies and Indian uprisings.
• Gents guilty of un-chivalrous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage. It’s a long walk back. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Such was the state of mass transit in this region. The stagecoaches were to be a short lived service. With the advent of the rail road and later the automobile, they faded into the dark recesses of history, but remained a memory of a more adventurous time for travel.

This and many other stories are available at the Brownwood Public Library – Genealogy & Local History Branch at 213 S. Broadway. Volunteers from the Pecan Valley Genealogical Society are there to assist you in your family history research.

Clay Riley is a local historian and retired Aerospace Engineer that has been involved in the Historical and Genealogical Community of Brown County for over 20 years. Should you have a comment, or a question that he may be able to answer in future columns, he can be reached at; [email protected].