Stagecoaches carrying passengers of the Barlow and Sanderson stagecoach line pulled into the side yard of the house. This outside door led to the cellar of the house where Lucinda Mahaffie, her daughters, and hired help served meals to hungry travelers from 1865 to 1869. Coaches running between Fort Scott and Fort Leavenworth, and betweeen Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe in New Mexico Territory stopped here. In 1866 and 1867, Lucinda and her helpers may have served anywhere from 50 to 100 meals per day.
Stagecoach stops or stations of the western country were not known for plush accomodations or fine dining! Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) described a stop when he wrote of his trip by stagecoach to Nevada in 1861:
In place of a window there was a square hole about large enough for a man to crawl through, but this had no glass in it. There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard. There was no stove, but a fire-place served all needful purposes. There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a corner stood an open sack of flour, and nestling against its base were a couple of black and venerable tin coffee-pots, a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a side of bacon. By the door of the station keeper's den, outside, was a tin wash-basin, on the ground. Near it was a pail of water and a piece of yellow soap...
A station like the Mahaffie home, featuring meals served by someone with real cooking skills, was a cut above what most travelers found as they journeyed further west.
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