The Picacho Station of the Butterfield Overland Mail Co. 1858

In 1857, Postmaster General Brown signed a contract with John Butterfield providing that a year later Butterfield was to start carrying mail by stage from St. Louis to California. Butterfield had to build 150 stations and corrals, dig wells and cisterns, grade fording sites, open new roads and improve old ones, establish supply bases and repair shops, purchase and distribute 1,200 horses and 600 mules, procure several thousand tons of hay and fodder, build hundreds of coaches, and hire 750 to 800 men.

The contract was for six years at an annual sum not to exceed $600,000.

Between the station as Mesilla and the one at Cooke's Peak Butterfield build one at Picacho. The 52 miles from Picacho to Cooke's was the longest stretch between stations in the western division.