Gorman: The Butterfield Stage Stop at the Summit

In eighteen fifty-eight, John Butterfield launched the Overland Mail, a stagecoach line linking Missouri to San Francisco across twenty-eight hundred miles of desert and mountain. One of its most demanding stretches was the climb over Tejon Pass into Southern California. At the base of the steepest pull, a station called Reed's Stand was established in eighteen fifty-eight to swap out the horses that had to haul coaches up the grade.

James Gorman Senior bought the property in eighteen sixty-seven and gave it his name. The Butterfield line stopped running in eighteen sixty-one when the Civil War severed the southern route, but the Telegraph Stage Line took over and kept using the same stops. The rest stop at the summit of the Tejon Pass that carries Gorman's name has served travelers on this same route for more than a hundred and sixty years.