Monahans Sandhills State Park and Museum
Monohans, Ward County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In these shifting seas of sand, rich in stone evidences of primitive men, today's visitors find flint points, sandstone metates and manos of peoples who were here as early as 10,000 years ago and late as the 1870s. Bones of great mammoths and gigantic bison prove that this desert was in post-glacial times a land of lakes and tall grasses. Cabeza de Vaca in 1535 and Antonio de Espejo in 1583 encountered Jumanos, historic tribe which hunted here. In 1590 Castano de Sosa found a tribe he called Vaqueros because they lived by hunting cows (buffalo)--the tribe later called Apaches. For more than 100 years at this stop on great Comanche War Trail extending into Mexico. Apache fought Comanche for pools of water and acorns of dwarf Shinnery oak. The California or Emigrant Trail through the Sand Hills started with the gold rush. Was first mapped in September 1849 by Capt. Randolph B. Marcy, U. S. topographical engineers, and in 1854 by Capt. John Pope, who explored a railroad route toward the Pacific Ocean. 3,000 acres of Sand Hills were designated in 1957 as a state park, after acquisition and construction of museum by Ward County. Has picnic facilities.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The shifting dunes near Monahans hold traces of an astonishingly deep human past—flint points, grinding stones, and the bones of mammoths and giant bison from a wetter, grassier age. Spanish explorers Cabeza de Vaca and Antonio de Espejo met the Jumano people here in the 1500s, and for more than a century Apache and Comanche fought over its scarce water and shinnery-oak acorns along the Comanche War Trail. Later the California gold rush sent emigrant wagons through the sand, first mapped by Army engineers in 1849 and 1854; the state set aside 3,000 acres as a park in 1957.
Why it matters
Few places compress so much of the human story—Ice Age hunters, Native nations, Spanish explorers, and westering emigrants—into a single stretch of shifting Texas sand.
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Related people
- · Cabeza de Vaca
- · Antonio de Espejo
- · Capt. Randolph B. Marcy
- · Capt. John Pope
Related events
- · California Gold Rush
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Willow Springs
Kermit, TX
In the Sand Hills of far West Texas, Willow Springs was a rare and precious source of water, well known to the Comanche and to the pioneers who crossed this arid country. After gold was discovered in California in 1849, wagon parties bound west paused here to drink. Decades later a settler found the charred remains of a 40-wagon train, evidence of a violent and still-unexplained massacre whose artifacts now rest at Sul Ross State University.
Blue Mountain
Kermit, TX
Despite its name, Blue Mountain is the southern escarpment of the Llano Estacado and the highest point in Winkler County. For centuries it served as a landmark and lookout on the West Texas plains, offering fuel, shelter, and water to those who passed. A 1938 excavation of its rock shelters found mortar holes and pictographs of hands, serpents, horses, and geometric designs, evidence of long human use.
Captain Randolph B. Marcy's Southern Route Expedition
Odessa, TX
As the 1849 Gold Rush drew thousands westward, the U.S. Army sent Captain Randolph B. Marcy to escort the 'Forty-Niners' toward Santa Fe, opening a wagon road from Fort Smith with the help of the Delaware scout Black Beaver and engineer James H. Simpson. After delivering his party, Marcy set out to survey a return route from West Texas, guided by a noted Comanche named Manuel across the Pecos, the Monahans sandhills, and an old Comanche trail near present-day Odessa. The resulting Fort Smith–Santa Fe road gave emigrants a shorter southern path across the continent.
The Sand Hills
Kermit, TX
This hundred-mile belt of shifting dunes, some rising more than 70 feet, sweeps across Winkler and neighboring counties into New Mexico. Long known to Native peoples who camped and hunted here and to Spanish explorers who crossed it, the sands were mapped by the U.S. government in 1849 for the gold seekers and settlers heading west. Shallow water beneath the dunes nourished willows, cottonwoods, and the plum thickets that fed early travelers, even as the heavy sands formed a natural barrier to their wagons.