STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS - HARD DRINKING, QUICK SHOOTING LEGEND OF THE WILD WEST

She left no diary or memoir behind, so historians have had to piece together her life with second-hand accounts and records. The details of her life before she came to Montana in 1885 are difficult to trace—complicated by her birth into slavery and the fact that, although she was literate, she left no written record.

Mary Fields was the first African American woman and the second woman to receive a Star Route contract from the United States Post Office Department. Handy with a gun and because she smoked, drank, and swore, she took what at that time was considered a “man’s job” delivering mail. She earned the nickname “Stagecoach Mary” for her reliability and speed, and she drove the fifteen-mile route between the mission and Cascade from 1895 to 1903.

Mary built a reputation of being fearless while working as a mail carrier. True to her fearless demeanor, she carried multiple firearms, most notably a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron driving the route by stagecoach with horses and a mule named Moses. She never missed a day. Mary’s job was not only to deliver the mail but to also protect the mail from bandits, thieves, wolves and the weather as well. #maryfields #stagecoachmary #maryfieldsuspostoffice

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