San Solomon Spring
Toyhavale, Reeves County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Called "Mescalero Spring" in 1849, when watering corn and peaches of the Mescalero Apaches. To Ft. Davis soldiers, 1856, was "Head Spring". Present name given by first permanent settlers, Mexican farmers. Miller, Lyles and Murphy in 1871 began large-scale commercial irrigation. Murphy built first canals. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the dry country of far West Texas, a single strong spring could decide who lived where. The Mescalero Apaches watered corn and peaches here, and by 1856 soldiers out of Fort Davis knew it as "Head Spring" before Mexican settlers gave it the name it carries today. In 1871 Miller, Lyles, and Murphy turned that flow into large-scale commercial irrigation, with Murphy digging the first canals — the beginning of farming that the spring still feeds.
Why it matters
San Solomon Spring shows how a scarce desert water source passed from Native use to military waypoint to the engine of settled agriculture, a compressed history of who claimed the arid West and how.
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Related people
- · Murphy
Themes & tags
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