
In a six-team stagecoach you had the leaders (front two animals) and the wheelers (ones closest to the coach). Do you know what the middle team of horses or mules was called?
Troy Kelly
Johnson City, New York
The middle pair is known as the swing team; these horses help a six-horse hitch round the corners. The swings are generally bigger than the leaders, but not as big as the wheelers. The wheel team is responsible for most of the pulling and actually steers the stagecoach.
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Marshall Trimble is Arizona’s official historian and the Wild West History Association’s vice president. His latest book is 2018’s Arizona Oddities: A Land of Anomalies and Tamales. Send your question, with your city/state of residence, to marshall.trimble@scottsdalecc.edu or Ask the Marshall, P.O. Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327.