Mary Fields was born into slavery around 1832 & freed after the Civil war. She would go on to work at convents in Ohio & Montana, where she ran a tight ship & became notorious for drinking, smoking, & toting guns. In 1895, she became the first African-American female star route mail carrier & earned the nicknamed “Stagecoach Mary” for her speed of delivery. She was also known for being fearless in the face of stagecoach thieves & is rumored to have fought off a pack of wolves with a rifle.
When she was about 60 years old, Fields was hired as a mail carrier because she was the fastest applicant to hitch a team of six horses. This made her the first African American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service.
She drove the route with horses and a mule named Moses. She never missed a day, and her reliability earned her the nickname “Stagecoach”. If the snow was too deep for her horses, Fields delivered the mail on snowshoes, carrying the sacks on her shoulders.
She was a respected public figure in Cascade, and the town closed its schools to celebrate her birthday each year. When Montana passed a law forbidding women to enter saloons, the mayor of Cascade granted her an exemption.
In 1903, at age 71, Fields retired from star route mail carrier service. She continued to babysit many Cascade children and owned and operated a laundry service from her home.
Fields died in 1914 at Columbus Hospital in Great Falls, but she was buried outside Cascade.
The Johnstone Family 