Comstock
Comstock, Val Verde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the early 1880s, Comstock developed as a station on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway because of the natural lake and water supply. The former townsite of Soto or Sotol City was replaced with Comstock, named after John B. Comstock, a railroad dispatcher. The community quickly grew and boasted a variety of establishments. The town was a key element in the wool and lamb industry and served as a temporary home to several Texas Rangers. After World War II and advances in technology, the population declined. Comstock is an example of the influence of small communities that led to the development of larger commercial cities. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Comstock sprang up in the early 1880s as a watering stop on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, taking advantage of a natural lake in the arid country west of the Pecos. Named for a railroad dispatcher, it replaced the earlier settlement of Sotol City and grew into a busy hub of the wool and lamb trade, even sheltering Texas Rangers for a time. After World War II, new technology and shifting economies thinned its population.
Why it matters
Comstock shows how small railroad and ranching depots knit the remote West Texas borderlands into the wider commercial life of the state.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John B. Comstock
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dead Man's Pass
Comstock, TX
This narrow canyon guarded one of the most feared stretches of the San Antonio–El Paso road, the overland lifeline that carried Forty-Niners and freighters toward California after the Gold Rush. Named by 1849 after a deadly ambush on Dr. Lyon's wagon train, it became notorious for raids and killings; freighter August Santleben later tallied nearly 400 deaths along the wider frontier road. The Army built Camp Hudson on the Devils River in 1857 to protect travelers, yet the pass was still considered dangerous into the early 1880s.
Site of Vinegarroon
Langtry, TX
In 1882 the Southern Pacific faced its last great barrier—the Pecos River canyon—on the transcontinental line linking New Orleans and San Francisco. Beside the excavation of Tunnel No. 2 rose Vinegarroon, a rough camp named for a local scorpion and home to thousands of mostly Chinese laborers. Roy Bean ran a saloon and served as justice of the peace here until the rails were joined in 1883 and the camp was abandoned.
Baxter's Curve Train Robbery
Sanderson, TX
In the dark early hours of March 13, 1912, Ben Kilpatrick—a former member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch—and his partner Ole Hobek boarded a Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio train at Dryden and forced it on to Baxter's Curve, a sharp bend where they uncoupled the baggage cars to plunder them. Their scheme unraveled when Wells Fargo express manager David A. Trousdale killed one robber with an ice mallet and shot the other with the dead man's own rifle. The two outlaws were buried in Sanderson, and Trousdale was celebrated for his nerve.
Real County
Leakey, TX
In the rugged canyon country of the Edwards Plateau, the settlement of Leakey straddled a county line, forcing residents to trek over mountains and rivers to conduct official business after the county seat moved to Rocksprings in 1891. After a rejected 1895 petition, the legislature finally created a new county in 1913—named, by amendment, for rancher and senator Julius Real. Farming and ranching sustained a rural way of life until highways arrived in the 1930s and, later, tourism and hunting reshaped the local economy.