Public coach pulled by horses regularly traveling a fixed route between stations or stages. Stagecoaches appeared in London by 1640 and in Paris by 1660. In the 19th century they were most widely used in the U.S. and in England, where in 1828 stagecoaches ran 12 times a day from Leicester to London. In the U.S. they were the only means of travel for long distances overland, carrying passengers and mail to locations especially in the West. As railroad travel became more common, stagecoach travel diminished except to remote locations.
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