National Register Listing

Carriage Point

a.k.a. Fisher's Station

4 mi. W of Durant, Durant, OK

Fisher's Station (better known as Carriage Point) was No. ll of the 12 stage stations established by the Butterfield Overland Mail to serve its 192-mile-long, northeast/southwest route across Indian Territory from Fort Smith to the Red River from 1858 to 1861. Four miles west of present-day Durant, in Bryan County, it was about three hours by stage from Colbert's Ferry on Red River. Like several other of the stations, Fisher's did not long survive the institution that gave it birth; yet the dramatic importance of the Butterfield adventure itself - perhaps the most elaborate mail contract signed by the U. S. government to that time - would seem to justify recognition of the site and the few remaining physical evidences of its brief existence.

Fisher was undoubtedly the station operator or a Butterfield employee. Little is known about him - even as to whether his full name was Osborne Fisher or Fisher Durant. The flat, grassy area where the station was established seems to have been known Locally as Carriage Point before Butterfield arrived on the scene and when the Civil War ended the run of the rumbling Concords the old name of Carriage Point returned to use. Fisher's was a relatively prosperous stand with several permanent buildings and two rock-lined wells. But the station itself was not re-opened after the Civil War. A post office, established March 23, 1869, with the name Carriage Point, was in operation less than two years.

An official Oklahoma Historical Society marker notes the site today. Only mounds of rubble, some scattered stones, evidence of two wells, and a few neglected grave stones remain to recall the presence of once-bustling Fisher's Station.

Local significance of the site:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1972.