protection from the wind. National Park Service Historian Frank Norris stated in an interview that "According to historian Gerald T. Ahnert, 'pulling up to a Butterfield stage station was like making a NASCAR pit stop.'" Extant Butterfield stages All the stages that weren't in use were distributed at stations along the 2,700-mile trail. At the closing of Butterfield’s operations on the Southern Overland Trail in March 1861, because of the start of the Civil War, many of the stages were confiscated and used by the Confederate Army as military vehicles. As much of the equipment as possible was transferred to the central trail to continue the Overland Mail Company contract. Only enough of the stages made it to the central route to operate the line from Salt Lake City, Utah, to western Nevada. The biography of Edwin R. Purple tells of transferring the stages to the central route. He was employed by the Overland Mail Company as a financial agent at Fort Yuma, California, in May 1860. At the closing of the line, on the Southern Overland Trail, in March 1861, he was ordered to transfer the stock and stages from Tucson, Arizona, to Los Angeles, California, to supply the central route line, which was to commence operations on July 1, 1861. On May 8, 1861, with 30 men, he left Los Angeles and successfully arrived at Salt Lake City on June 16 with 18 stage wagons and 130 horses. In a discussion by Gerald T. Ahnert with members of the True West Historical Society, it was suggested that many of these original stagecoaches and stage wagons were bought by movie companies in the 1930s through 1950s and used in their movie productions. Many were destroyed in scenes of the stages being attacked. Operations Butterfield's Overland Mail Company held the U.S. Mail contract from September 16, 1858, on a six-year contract. The first stage going east left San Francisco at 10 minutes past midnight on September 14, 1858. The mail from San Francisco reached St. Louis in 24 days, 18 hours, and 26 minutes. The first stage going west left Tipton, Missouri, at 8 am on September 16, 1858. The mail was carried by railroad for the first from St. Louis to Tipton. Butterfield's Overland Mail Company made two trips a week from September 1858 to March 1861. At the start of service, the mail would leave St. Louis, Missouri,