Ruins of "The Pinery" or "Pine Spring" Stage Stand
Pine Springs, Culberson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1858 as a station on the Butterfield overland mail route St. Louis to San Francisco. Abandoned in 1859, when the line was shifted to the Davis Mountain route. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1858 in the shadow of the Guadalupe Mountains, 'The Pinery' served as a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, the pioneering stagecoach line that carried mail and passengers between St. Louis and San Francisco. Its stone walls sheltered travelers and fresh mule teams for barely a year before the line was rerouted south through the Davis Mountains in 1859. The State of Texas erected this memorial to the ruins in 1936.
Why it matters
The Butterfield route was America's first great overland link to the Pacific, and stage stands like this one made possible the flow of mail, people, and news that knit the far West to the rest of the nation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Butterfield Overland Mail
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pope's Crossing
Orla, TX
This marker commemorates Pope's Crossing, a historic fording point on the Pecos River in far West Texas, whose original site lay a few miles to the northeast in Loving County. Crossings like this were vital passages for travelers, surveyors, and settlers moving through an arid and roadless country. The actual site now lies submerged beneath the waters of Red Bluff Lake, an impoundment on the Pecos.
Orla
Orla, TX
Orla sprang up in 1890 as a stop on the Pecos Valley Railroad, growing during the era's land promotions into a town with a school, general stores, a hotel, and a livery stable. When the highway bypassed it, the last merchant and postmaster, Hal Olds, simply moved a quarter mile west to the new road in 1931. Today the site serves mainly as a gateway to Red Bluff Lake, the Guadalupe Mountains, and Carlsbad Caverns.
August Fransal
Sierra Blanca, TX
August Fransal was one of the daring stage drivers who carried the mail across the perilous Ben Ficklin Overland line between San Antonio and El Paso, guiding his mule-drawn coach through country contested by Apache raiders. He served as a Texas Ranger in the early 1880s under Captain George W. Baylor and worked as a teamster at Fort Davis, later making his living as a hunter who sold fresh game in El Paso.
America's Second Transcontinental Railroad
Sierra Blanca, TX
At Sierra Blanca in 1881, two rival railroads racing across the desert finally met, completing the nation's second transcontinental line and its long-sought southern route. Rather than build competing tracks, Jay Gould of the Texas & Pacific and Collis P. Huntington of the Southern Pacific struck a deal here to join their lines into one continuous road to the Pacific. Through service began that December, decades after statesmen like Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun first championed the idea in Congress.