In 1858 the Butterfield Overland Mail Company established stations at ten to twenty mile intervals to serve passengers and change horses. One of those stations was located approximately a mile and a half east of here. The first stage left the East in September of 1858 to carry the U.S. mail and passengers from St. Louis to San Francisco. The trip took
about twenty-four days and eighteen hours one way. The 1855 survey called the road
angling between Tule River and Visalia "the road from Packwoods to Visalia." The station on that road was called Packwood Station. The first two men keeping the station were brothers, Charles and Isaac Putnam. A third man, R. Porter Putnam (no relation), worked
there from December 1858 to April 1859. Charles Putnam was given the Tule River Station late in 1859 and in 1864 R. Porter Putnam started the town of Porterville. The station was located where the road to Visalia split off from the Old Stockton-Los Angeles Road. In 1865 the county started aligning roads to section lines and the station was moved North to the new Visalia Road (Avenue 280) and the new bridge on outside creek. The beginning of the Civil War ended Butterfield's Southern route and by 1862 the stage lines were locally owned.

Dedicated October 5, 2002
Dr. Samuel Gregg George Chapter 1855 of E Clampus Vitus

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Farmersville
The Electric Railroad
San Joaquin Roller Mill
The Hanging of J.G. McCrory
Visalia Chinatown
Venice School
Butterfield Overland Mail
The Old Tulare County Jail
Tulare County Election Tree
Visalia Times-Delta

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