08/07/2025
If your town has an Old Wire Road on its street maps, you may be surprised to learn that there’s some interesting history behind it. It started as part of the Osage Trace, a trail that Native Americans used to migrate to and from various areas during hunting season. By 1832, many tribes had been driven from the area. By 1836, the part of the trail that extended from Versailles, Missouri to Fayetteville, Arkansas became known as “The Fayetteville Road.”
From 1858 until 1861, the Postal Service used the road as part of their Butterfield Overland Mail Route (pictured), a 2800-mile journey between San Francisco and St. Louis. Stagecoaches traveled the Butterfield Trail across the country to various points in Arkansas and up through Missouri, carrying letters, passengers and freight. The trip took twenty-four days, and coaches made the trip twice a week.
In 1860, telegraph wires were put up along the trail from St. Louis to Ft. Smith. The trail then became known as “Telegraph Road.”
During the Civil War, the road was referred to as “The Military Road,” and was used by troops to move between Missouri and Arkansas.
After the War had ended, it was referred to as “The Wire Road,” due to the telegraph wires. From the 1840’s until 1877, the telegraph was the fastest way to transmit news and messages across the country.
Around 1877, the invention of the telephone made telegraphs obsolete, and the telegraph wires were taken down. Wire Road then became known as the “Old Wire Road.”
