When Did the Last Stagecoach Line (USA) Go Out of Business?

[ralph124c]

I know the ralroads reached the American West from the 1870’s on…but stage coaches were still in use, to connect towns that had no rail access. Anyone know when the last stagecoach rolled out?

[samclem]

The last American chapter in the use of the stage coaches took place between 1890 and the late 1920s, when the road to Young, AZ was paved and the stagecoach was replaced with a Ford. In the end, it was the motor bus, not the train, that caused the final disuse of these horse-drawn vehicles, and many “automobile stage companies” were established in the early 1900s. After the main railroad lines were established, it was frequently not practical to go to a place of higher elevation by rail lines if the distance was short. A town 10 to 25 miles off the mail rail trunk, if it were 1000 or more feet higher, would be very difficult and expensive to serve by rail due to the grade incline. This final portion of the trip, during that 25-year period, was usually served by local stage lines, with a ride of less than a half day being typical. Once the mainline rail grid was in service, the railroad actually stimulated stage line operations well into the 20th century. These were eventually replaced by motorbuses, and so many local private bus lines were early-on called motor-stage lines. By 1918 stage coaches were only operating in a few mountain resorts or western National Parks as part of the “old west” romance for tourists.

from

Stagecoach

[Will_Repair]

Stagecoaches were running to Maple Lake from the railroad in Mentor, MN in 1915, (grandparent’s honeymoon.)

[gotpasswords]

Who better to ask than Wells Fargo?

From 1852 to 1918, Wells Fargo rushed customers’ important business by any means - steamship, railroad, and, where the railroads ended, by stagecoach.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

The end of what samclem quoted shows that we probably can never pin down exactly when some of the last routes changed from being workaday transport to the status of amusement for tourists.

Many bus companies still have the word “stages” in their name, e.g. Orange Belt Stages.