Born enslaved in the south of the US, Mary Fields (c. 1832–1914) was freed after the Civil War and moved to Montana in her fifties where she became the first African American mail carrier. She delivered U.S. mail from Cascade, Montana, to Saint Peter's Mission for eight years (1885 to 1893) and worked in all weather conditions.She was mentioned by famed actor Gary Cooper in an interview in 1959 as a “whiskey-drinking, cigar-smoking, gun-toting woman.” She was an important member of the local community.