Stagecoach Days: Buckskin Tracy & Stephen Clark

Red Oak Public Library

Somewhere deep in the bowels of Iowa's State Historical Building there's a vintage stagecoach. Not the Concord type most often associated with western romance. But a two-horse "jerky" --- a smaller coach designed for primitive roads and capable of carrying seven passengers, providing one rides up top with the driver.

The coach was collected in Red Oak during August of 1900 by Charles Aldrich, founding curator of Iowa' State Historical Department, who arranged to have it shipped to Des Moines for display on the basement level of the state's first Historical Building, then brand new, still standing but now rechristened Ola Babcock and used for other purposes.

State Historical Society of Iowa

I remember seeing it there --- trips to the museum were obligatory when I was kid, sometimes on school outings, at other times with my parents. The coach disappeared into storage when the collection was moved from old to new building.

The coach had belonged to the late Perry B. "Buckskin" Tracy, one of those great pioneer characters in the south and southwest of Iowa, now largely forgotten. He was a southwest Iowa divisional manager, headquartered in Red Oak, for the Western Stage Co. when that once-great transportation company folded --- officially on July 1, 1870, but actually in stages as Iowa's rail system expanded west to the Missouri River and put it out of business.

The last coaches left Chariton in 1868; Red Oak, about a year later. Both Buckskin Tracy and his longtime partner, Stephen Clark, had worked together in Chariton for the company before moving to what proved to be the end of the line, Red Oak, about 1862, where --- as in Chariton --- Clark was station agent and Tracy, road agent.

Perry salvaged six coaches not otherwise disposed of when the stage company ended operations 1869-1871 and moved these to his farm where he built a barn to cover them and maintained them as curiosities. After his death, the coaches became part of a large estate disbursed among about 20 relatives, including a nephew, Perry T. Tracy, also of Red Oak.

It was Perry T. Tracy's wife who gave one of the remaining coaches to the historical society in 1900.

When the Western Stage Coach Co. went out of business, both Clark and Tracy turned their attention to agriculture on separate farms west of Red Oak and to other business interests. They were astute businessmen and both prospered, but were considered somewhat peculiar by those who did not know them well in part most likely because neither showed any interest in many of the conventions of the day, including marriage.

Clark was described as reserved and reticent, even stand-offish; Tracy, known as Buckskin because of the clothing he had worn as a stage driver and manager, as gregarious and outgoing. He reserved a set of buckskins to be worn on special occasions after retirement.

Tracy died at the home of friends in Red Oak at the age of 72 on Aug. 8, 1886. Clark died there in hotel lodgings on Oct. 3, 1890, age 75. Both are buried behind substantial gray granite tombstones within sight of each other in an older part of the Red Oak Cemetery. Buck, a showboat in life, boasts what was described as the largest tombstone in the cemetery when it was erected; Stephen's is only slightly more modest.

During July of 1933, a United Press reporter filed a story about the old coach then on display in Des Moines, published in The Red Oak Express of July 31. One paragraph reads, "Possibly the most romantic article is the sturdy stage coach which once ran from Afton Junction, Iowa, to Denver, Colorado. According to the somewhat faded inscription on its side, this coach, commonly known as the 'two-horse jerky,' was owned by Buckskin Tracy, Red Oak, Iowa, and driven by H.A. Russel,  Hastings, Iowa. A one-way ticket from Fairfield to Chariton, Iowa, which is tacked on the side of the coach, indicates that the fare was $6.10 for this journey of almost 100 miles. The coach was abandoned about 1865."

Whether or not this old coach carried passengers from Fairfield to Chariton, too, I cannot say.  The ticket may just have been found along Tracy's belongings and attached to the coach for display. But it does bring us back to the beginning of stagecoach days in Lucas County and the arrival in Chariton as substantially younger men of Perry and Stephen, which is where I'll pick this little story up another day.