Horsehead Crossing
Girvin, Pecos County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(2 miles NE) Famed ford of the Pecos River, named for abundance of horse and mule skulls lining the banks in the 19th century. Many water-starved animals, stolen in Mexico by Indians and driven along the Comanche War Trail, died after drinking too deeply from the river. After the California gold strike in 1848, Horsehead Crossing became a major landmark on the trail west, as it provided the first water for about 75 miles on the route from the east. Emigrants arriving here either turned northwest along the river or crossed and continued southwest to Comanche Springs at Fort Stockton. In 1858, the crossing became an important stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from St. Louis to San Francisco. An adobe stage stand was built and a ferry put into operation, but both were abandoned in 1861, when mail service was terminated. In late 1862, during the Civil War, federal forces kept a close watch at the crossing in reaction to a threatened Confederate invasion. Cattle began to be trailed across the Pecos in 1864, and in 1866, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed their famous trail, which came to this point and turned upriver. Completion of two railroads across west Texas in the early 1880s caused abandonment of the crossing. (1974)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Horsehead Crossing was the great ford of the Pecos River, named for the horse and mule skulls that littered its banks—animals driven up the Comanche War Trail that drank themselves to death after the long dry haul. After the 1849 gold rush it became a vital landmark, offering the first water in some 75 miles, and by 1858 it anchored a stage stand on the Butterfield Overland Mail. Confederate and Union eyes watched it during the Civil War, and in 1866 Goodnight and Loving blazed their famous cattle trail to this very point.
Why it matters
Few spots concentrate so much frontier history—Comanche raiders, gold-seekers, the overland mail, and the first great cattle drives all converged at this lifesaving bend of the Pecos.
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Related people
- · Charles Goodnight
- · Oliver Loving
Related events
- · Butterfield Overland Mail
- · Goodnight-Loving Trail
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Horse Head Crossing on the Pecos River
Girvin, TX
This ford on the Pecos was one of the great crossroads of the West, where the ancient Comanche Trail from the Llano Estacado to Mexico met the routes of American expansion. Surveyor John R. Bartlett found it in 1850 marked by horse skulls, giving it its name. The Butterfield Overland Mail, the road west from Fort Concho, and the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail all funneled through this single crossing.
Castle Gap
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Castle Gap, a natural notch in the Castle Mountains of West Texas, has funneled travelers for millennia — from prehistoric Native peoples who left flint points, to Spanish explorers, California-bound gold-seekers, the Butterfield Overland Mail stages of 1858–1861, and the great Goodnight-Loving cattle drives after 1866. A spring within the gap made it a vital watering stop on the road to Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos.
Mendoza Trail
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In 1683–1684, Lt. Gen. Juan Dominguez de Mendoza led a party of 35 across the future Upton County on a Spanish expedition to explore the Pecos Plains, gather river pearls, and bring Christianity to the Jumano Indians. Setting out from below El Paso, the group founded San Clemente Mission where the Concho met the Colorado. Two centuries later, cattlemen following the Goodnight-Loving trail retraced part of Mendoza's route.
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A mile-long gap between Castle and King mountains, Castle Gap funneled nearly the whole pageant of West Texas travel through one narrow pass. Comanche war parties, the Spanish explorer Rabago y Teran, gold-rush '49ers, Butterfield Overland Mail coaches from 1858 to 1861, and the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail after 1866 all passed this way, and legend places buried Maximilian treasure nearby. Today its old coach ruts fade quietly into the desert.