The mail in the 1830s and '40s traveled on Frink, Walker & Co. (The 96-mile Illinois and Michigan Canal that would eventually connect Chicago with the Illinois River at Ottawa was not completed until 1848.) Frink, a Connecticut native who learned the stagecoach business in the East, formed a rival stage-steamboat line in 1834, then in 1837, he bought out Temple. Temple started a stage line from Chicago southwest to Peoria to meet the steamboats plodding up and down the Illinois River from St.
The first non-local stagecoach line arrived from Detroit in 1833 after the Black Hawk War of 1832 ended an Indian revolt over ownership of Illinois farmland and made land travel safe west of Chicago. That took about 50 minutes, so the passengers had to wolf down lunch or dinner in just 10 minutes to avoid being left behind after the hour layover.Ī few years later, the 97-mile trip from Chicago to Milwaukee by stage consumed two days, with an overnight stop in Kenosha, but competition from Great Lakes ships had reduced the summertime fare to $3 ($70 today). The inns usually didn't start cooking until the coach arrived. Passengers were often forced to help push the coaches out of the mud or help with repairs. Accidents were common, as were injured horses that often immobilized the stages and forced passengers to continue their trips on the first farm wagon that came along.Įven meals could be an ordeal.
The 150 to 160 mile trip, depending on the route, took the better part of five days but that was cut to two days when they ran around the clock, with stops every 12 to 15 miles at relay stations to change horses. They stopped for the night at inns along the route. The stages typically left the Frink, Walker & Co., Chicago depot between 4 and 6 am to take advantage of as much daylight as possible. The Galena-Chicago route had many stops at Lena, Illinois, going east, the stage route followed today's US 20 through Eleroy, Freeport, Rockford, Belvidere, Bloomingdale and other towns along the way.
Oddly enough, that town was also the terminus of the first railroad. For several years after the primitive locomotives had come puffing in and out of town, the stages continued to run regularly, carrying passengers and mail to and from many places not reached by the first railroads.įrink, Walker & Co., General Stage Office.Įven before Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, the firm established a stagecoach line to Galena in 1832. (1844)įrom 1832 until the construction of the first railroad in 1848, the stagecoaches of Frink, Walker & Co., were the largest company connecting Chicago with the outside world. Frink, Walker & Co., General Stage Office, two doors west, on the south side of Lake Street, off the corner of Lake and Dearborn streets, Chicago, Illinois.
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