Captain Henry Skillman, C.S.A.
Presidio, Presidio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Kentucky. Came to Texas before 1846. Was a U. S. Army scout in Mexican War. Established first mail service from San Antonio to El Paso in 1851. Drove first Butterfield Overland Mail coach in 1858 through dangerous Comanche Indian territory from Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos to El Paso. "Skinning" Mule teams never driven before, made the drive in 4 days without rest or relief, his 6-foot frame in buckskins decorated with revolvers and Bowie knives, and his sandy hair and beard flowing to his waist. A Confederate scout in the Civil War. After July 1862, when Federals seized El Paso and the Davis Mountains (to make the longest enemy occupation in Texas), liaison and courier toConfederate refugee colony in Juarez. Knowing country and people well, moved without fear of the Federals. Spread false rumors of Confederates massed in remote deserts, to send enemy troops on fruitless, exhausting chases. Most dreaded scout known to the occupation. Singled out by the Union Commander, was hunted by force commissioned to take him alive. Was killed resisting capture by Federal troops in camp at Spencer's Ranch near here on April 3, 1864. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Kentucky-born frontiersman, Henry Skillman scouted in the Mexican War and in 1851 opened the first mail service between San Antonio and El Paso, later driving stages across dangerous West Texas country. When the Civil War came he served the Confederacy as a scout and courier through the far Trans-Pecos, spreading false rumors and evading the Union forces who occupied the region. Hunted by troops ordered to take him alive, he was killed resisting capture near here in 1864.
Why it matters
His life spans the mail routes, stagecoach lines, and Civil War struggles that connected and contested the West Texas frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Capt. Henry Skillman
Related events
- · Mexican War
- · Butterfield Overland Mail
- · Union occupation of El Paso (1862)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Alamito
Marfa vicinity, TX
Alamito Creek had been a corridor of human activity since prehistoric times when Spanish explorers first passed through in 1535 and Mexican families began raising rancheros here around 1715 despite Apache pressure. In the 1850s the storied Chihuahua Trail brought freight wagons rumbling past, and by 1870 Alamito was a farming community led by North Carolina pioneer John Davis, who married into the founding Herrera family and served peach brandy to travelers. A railroad reached the site in 1930 and renamed it Plata, but today only ruins of the homes, chapel, school, and canal remain, with wagon ruts still cut into the bedrock.
Lajitas Cemetery
Lajitas, TX
Set beside a Rio Grande ford that people crossed for millennia, the Lajitas cemetery gathers the varied history of the Big Bend borderland into one flagstone-walled ground. Comanche and Apache raiders followed the crossing into Mexico, Spanish expeditions scouted it for a presidio in the 1740s, and one of the Army's experimental camel expeditions paused here in 1860. After rancher H. W. McGuirk opened a trading post in 1899 and troops manned the crossing in the 1910s, a small settlement grew—and its Hispanic and Anglo dead were laid to rest here in barrows and niche-topped grutas.
Albion E. Shepard House
Marathon, TX
When the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway pushed across West Texas in the 1880s, retired sea captain Albion E. Shepard came as a surveyor and stayed to build an empire of ranchland. He founded the townsite of Marathon — named, tradition holds, for the Greek valley its hills recalled — served as its first postmaster, and ran sheep by the tens of thousands on his Iron Mountain Ranch. Before 1887 he raised a two-story adobe Colonial Revival house facing the town square.
Eagle Springs Stage Stand
Allamoore, TX
For nearly three decades this remote West Texas spot served as a station on the Overland and Chihuahua trails, where stagecoaches and wagon trains paused on the long haul between the settled East and the far frontier. From 1854 to 1882 it offered mail, passengers, and supplies to travelers crossing one of the loneliest stretches of the American Southwest.