Historical Crane County
Horsehead Crossing looking east towards Castle Gap
Photo by Bill Dawson |
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Table of Contents
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Castle Gap
Castle Gap, famous early pass for Southwestern trails, lies along the Upton -
Crane County lines. Through this mile long gap between Castle and King
Mountains flowed the full panorama of Texas.
In pre-historic time Castle Gap was a landmark for Nomadic Indian tribes
and later guided the Commanches on their war trail into Mexico. The
first white man to discover the pass was probably the Spanish explorer
Felipe Rabago Y Teran in 1761. Then came the 49'ers in their frenzied rush
to the California gold fields, to be followed by more permanent settlers.
From 1858 to 1861 the famed Butterfield Overland mail coaches rumbled
through the pass on their 24 day journey from St. Louis to San Francisco,
pausing briefly at the adobe walled Castle Gap way station for fresh teams.
Then they were off again, fording the Pecos River at Horse- head Crossing
12 miles to the southwest and fading into the sunset. By 1866 the
Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail was firmly established at the gap, funneling
tens of thousands of bawling longhorn cattle to northern markets.
During this same period, legend holds that a treasure laden aide of Emperor
Maximilian of Mexico, fleeing the country when the regime collapsed, buried
gold and jewels worth a quarter of a million dollars in the area.
Today Castle Gap slumbers peacefully, disturbed only by visitors, occasional
treasure hunters and those who probe for ruins of the Butterfield Stage
Station and the rapidly fading ruts of coach and wagon.
Reprinted with permission of the Crane County Chamber of Commerce.
MARKER DEDICATED - MAY 25, 1968
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Crane County
The area that is now Crane County was within the territory of the Lipan
Apaches, who were among the originators of the plains culture comon to
Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and other Indians. This part of the
Pecos country may have been crossed by Spanish explorer Felipe de Rabago
y Teran in 1761 and some of the early California bound American travelers
passed through Castle Gap and Horsehead Crossing.
Crane County was formed in 1887 from land previously assigned to Tom Green
County the same year. Scant rainfall discouraged settling the county.
The first, and only, city of Crane County, Crane, was established in 1908.
The discovery of oil in 1926 led to the county being organized the following
year, and led to Crane's development as an oil boomtown. In 1940 the
population, 1,420, had grown to 3,622 in 1980, when the town had a library,
swimming pool and some 104 businesses, including a concrete plant, steel
industry, nursing home, a hospital, and a newspaper, the Crane News.
Crane County was attached to Ector County for administrative purposes until
1927. The county's main product has been oil, with 1,552-million
barrels produced by 1991.
Crane County is bounded on the north by Ector, east by Upton, south by Pecos,
and west by Ward counties. Two railways cross the county: Texas and
Pacific on the northeast, and Panhandle and Sante Fe across the southern
tip. Interstate 20 crosses the northwest corner. US 385 runs
north/south along the eastern border, and the Pecos River forms most of the
southern border. Historic pioneer trails are among the tourist
attractions for the county.
The New Texas Handbook is the source of this information. For more facts try
the complete article in the
New Texas Handbook.
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Horsehead Crossing
Travelers between the east and west have reckoned with the Pecos River as
long as man has lived in the Southwest. The old river has dealt some
odd hands - one of them in contemporary history when she swept away the
prize bridge of the entire state highway system at the crossing near Langtry.
It has been replaced with the highest vehicular bridge yet built in Texas.
A few highway and railroad bridges now span the historic Pecos River.
But until days of the late Judge Roy Bean, the only place the Pecos could
be crossed was at a point northeast of Fort Stockton.
Old Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River lies dormant and ignobly among
the salt cedar and silt of the centuries. The historic spot seemingly
still is unrepentant for her deeds of the past and takes with sullen
acquiescence of the mantle of ignobility thrust over her by history.
Most modern maps do not recognize the infamous crossing, but before the turn
of the century - and as far back as the days of the Spanish Conquistadors -
no map of the Southwest was complete without a spot to designate Horsehead.
She was as important on maps of those days as San Antonio, Nacogdoches and
Chihuahua City, as no traveler could travel the Southwest from east to west
or west to east without conquering the anger of the Pecos at Horsehead
Crossing.
As pioneers treked westward, they built towns and these towns grew to cities
where obstacles or nature's signposts halted men in their westwardmovement
All who traveled the lower route halted at Horsehead, but nobody tarried
longer than necessity demanded. No cowman's rockshack, no inn, no
permanent habitation ever marked Horsehead Crossing. Having done with
her, men shunned her like a pestilence.
Chronicles of travelers, from the Spaniards on to the users of the crossing
at the turn of the century have not one good word for Horsehead Crossing.
They paint pictures of desolation, danger, bleakness and dread, where death
lurks at every turn.
Antonio de Espejo, the Spanish explorer, crossed the river here in 1583 and
named it Rio de las Vacas (River of Cows) because of the heards of buffalo
they drifted along both banks of the turbulent stream.
Nearly a century later Spanish Explorer Mendoza led an expedition into the
area. He came upon the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing but rather than
attempt a crossing, he headed north and discovered the Concho River.
He wrote of the ancient road that crossed the Pecos here and commented on
the vast piles of bones he saw along the banks of the river.
In 1839 the first American citizen crossed the Pecos at Horsehead. He
was Dr. Henry Connelly, and he headed a small expedition from Independence,
Missouri, to Chihuahua, Mexico.
He brought gold and silver from Mexican mines and loaded 20 wagons with
the metals and headed back to the United States. He used 6,000 mules
in the caravan and more than 100 armed men guarded the cargo. In
spite of the constant danger of attack by Indians and outlaws, the dread
that tormented those of the party who made the long trek with Dr. Connelly
was not of the danger from attack but of the hidden danger lurking at
Horsehead Crossing.
When they arrived at the crossing the Pecos was bank-full and nearly 150
feet wide. The teamsters used empty water kegs tied around the laden
wagons as floats and managed to get the precious metals across, but several
supply wagons with their teams were victims of the angry Pecos and one
teamster lost his life.
Although it was almost dark by the time the caravan finally crossed the
Pecos, Dr. Connelly ordered the drivers to push away from the skeleton-
marked Horsehead Crossing, and no man ventured a word in favor of a camp
for the night.
In 1848 an expedition set out from San Antonio for Chihuahua and crossed
the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing and opened a route to the interior of
northern Mexico and called it the Chihuahua Trail, over which in years to
follow, rolled gold and silver bullion of a value to stagger the
imagination. Freighters from old Indianola, on the Texas Gulf Coast,
drove to San Antonio and along the trail to Horsehead Crossing and on to
Chihuahua and back, adding to the riches that rolled over this desolate
desert-way and dared the vengeance of the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing.
The U. S. Army in 1849 mapped a trail from San Antonio to El Paso and used
Horsehead Crossing. Lieutenant Francis T. Bryan, one of two
officers heading the expedition noted in his report that they spanned the
Pecos at a place called Horsehead Crossing, named no doubt, he commented,
because of the many horses' heads scattered nearby. This expediton
mapped a route that later bacame a part of the Goodnight-Loving Cattle
Trail, named in 1866.
A year later another Army expedition under Captain John R. Bartlett crossed
at Horsehead. He noted in his report the many horses's and mules'
heads scattered along the banks of the river. The crossing almost
extracted its grim toll from this small expedition.
After most of the wagons and teams had made the crossing safely, two wagons,
one driven by Captain Bartlett, fell victim to the deadly current.
The mules lunged and fought the water and two of the wagons and teams
became entangled in mid-stream. A young soldier named Clement Young
saw the danger, waded as far as possible into the swirling waters then
tossed a rope over the heads of the lead team. Others rode to his
assistance on horseback and by pulling on the rope managed to untangle
the teams and wagons and haul them to shore.
Horsehead was the crossing for the Old Salt Trail, well-traveled even in
the days when explorer Mendoza saw the crossing; and it extracted its
toll from those who traveled it to haul precious salt to the arid and
saltless land to the east.
Just when Horsehead Crossing got it's name is unknown. It bore the
name when the first American explorers crossed it, and the name was
generally common when Jack Hays, the Texas Ranger, led an exploring unit
of the U. S. Army from San Antonio to Chihuahua in 1848. Most maps
drawn by the early explorers marked the spot and called it Horsehead
Crossing.
Not a mention of the crossing in any way of the records or journals kept
by explorers, adventurers and traders who used it contained a single
favorable mention of her. The river was treacherous, the waters
brackish and salty. There was practically no graze in the area
for cattle or horses. The trail on both sides of the crossing
was marked with carcases of oxen, horses, cattle and mules, apparently
dropped in their tracks from thirst and exhaustion. After long
drought the water was unfit to drink by men or beast, and hordes of
animals, near dead from thirst after crossing nearly 100 miles of desert
on either side of the river, plunged into the salt gyp-water and drank
themselves to death.
In 1857 the United States awarded to John Butterfield a contract to
extablish an overland stage from St. Louis to San Francisco to expedite
mail service. The Butterfield stage line breached the Pecos at
Horsehead Crossing.
An easterner, after making the stage trip and experiencing the danger
of Horsehead and the Trans-Pecos country, wrote to friends back home
that he now knew where hell was. Another tender-foot, gorging
himself with Pecos water wrote that the water would give a bird flying
over the river diarrhea.
As if the brackish water and the desert were not enough to make Horsehead
a dreaded crossing, the river was cursed with quicksand. In 1865 a
caravan left old Fort McKavett in Menard County, Texas, headed for
California. In the caravan were 1,000 head of cattle, 70 yoke of
oxen and 120 oxen to pull the wagons. The party camped at Castle Gap
about 12 miles east of Horsehead Crossing. That night Indians
swooped down and drove off all the stock except the 120 work oxen and a
few horses.
While some of the men searched for the stolen cattle, others drove the
oxen on to Horsehead Crossing. The moment the oxen smelled the water
of the Pecos, they stampeded. They plunged head-long into the river,
those behind shoving the others into the quicksand. Only 19 oxen of
the 120 that the Indians did not steal came out of Horsehead Crossing
alive.
John Chisum brought a head of 1,100 steers at Trickham, Texas, in Coleman
County, at $18.00 a head and headed them for New Mexico. At Horsehead,
Indians came down on the camp. The Chisum flock amounted to exactly
6 steers when finally it reached Fort Stockton.
In 1871 G. F. Ranowsky, a trail driver, started from Mason County, Texas,
with 3,000 steers, headed for Colorado. When the famished outfit
reached Horsehead Crossing they pitched camp. War whoops startled
the men from their sleep. All that was left of the herd when the
Indians rode away was one yoke of oxen.
The history of Horsehead is a history of violence, financial ruin and
death. Throughout three centuries trailmakers tried in vain to find
another crossing, but the banks of the Pecos throughout the vast area of
West Texas were high and rugged. Only at Horsehead did the banks
on both sides of the river lend a gentle slope down to the water.
How deceptive that gentleness was.
The rugged terrain and desolation made perfect ambushes for lurking Indians
and outlaws. If a caravan was fortunate enough to escape its human
enemies, frequently the crossing was more merciless than the Indians.
Today a marker points with pride to the treacherous Horsehead Crossing.
In a clump of mesquite a few yards from the river bank are the sunken
rectangles where, as far back as 1870, 13 men lay buried, victims of
violence at old Horsehead.
The passing of time nullified the need of Horsehead as a crossing of the
Pecos, and sand and erosion have obliterated the deep ruts of the great
freighters, the footprints of the conquistadors, the salt freighters, the
trail-drivers and the pioneers rolling westward in search of California
gold and the end of a rainbow. Even time has calmed the old river
as farmers partake of its water for irrigation and the salt cedar chokes
its passage.
Reprinted with permission of the Crane County Chamber of Commerce.
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Horsehead Crossing by Donnie Henderson
Most West Texans have heard of historic Horsehead Crossing, yet although
in earlier times it was a very famous crossing, today no one can pinpoint
its exact location. To earlier travelers it was a treacherous fording
place and was surrounded by drab scenery. Through scorching sand and
rocky defile we travel the 200-year-old trail the Comanche raiders, stages,
and thirst-crazed longhorn cattle and horses have traveled.
Starting at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, the 600 miles of
the Pecos River skirted the East side of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to join the Rio Grande in West Texas. Along this Pecos River
are various other crossings, but none as famous as the Horsehead Crossing
located in the present West Texas county of Crane.
The Cibolas (Buffalo) Indians of the Presidio del Norte region used the
Salt Trail to travel from their home on the Rio Grande to kill buffalo east
of the river. They salted their meat at the salt lake just east of
the Pecos also located in Crane County. The old Salt Crossing they
used was about ten miles above the site of Horsehead Crossing.
Mendoza's 1684 expedition described Castle Gap and thought it possible the
Pecos was as large as the Rio Grande, and because of its salty water he
named it the Salado. Although he does not mention Horsehead Crossing,
it is believed he probably used the crossing.
By the 1800's the fierce Comanches had established the Comanche War Trail
raiding below the Rio Grande and returning with their stolen horses,
livestock and captured Mexicans for slavery and adoption into their
villages. In the 1800's the Pecos was the division between Comanche
and Apache territories in West Texas. During that period, the
Comanches and Kiowas took the short cut across Horsehead Crossing to raid
Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango, Mexico. September's period of a
full moon was known to the Mexicans as the Comanche Moon when the raids
took place. The Comanches would drive their stolen horses from
Comanche Springs at Fort Stockton at a fast pace causing many of the
horses to stampede upon smelling the water of the Pecos. The
desperate animals tortured by thirst would trample each other trying to
reach the water. Early travelers would tell of large numbers of
horse's heads that lay scattered near the crossing.
The California Overland Mail (Butterfield Overland Mail), 2,795 miles
from St. Louis to San Francisco, entered Texas by way of Fort Smith,
Arkansas, followed the line of forts southwesterly the middle Concho
River then turned westerly up that valley, then through Castle Gap to
Horsehead Crossing. From here the early route followed up the Pecos
River to Pope's Crossing near the present Red Bluff Reservoir, and
westward to El Paso. A more southerly route from Horsehead Crossing
was probably a better choice. It went from the Crossing direct to
Fort Stockton, Leon Springs, Toyahvale, Fort Davis, and to Van Horn's Well
and El Paso. It also had the advantage of servicing the westerly
line of forts. The original run over this new mail trail to
California was made in 1858 and the New York Herald sent a special news
correspondent, W. L. Ormsby, to be a passenger on the mule-drawn coach so
that he could report the trip.
W. L. Ormsby described the area as "Strewn along the road, and far as
the eye could reach along the plain-decayed and decaying animals, the
bones of cattle and sometimes men (the hide drying on the skin in the
arid atmosphere), all told a fearful story of anguish and terrific death
from the pangs of thirst. For miles and miles these bones strew the
plain..."
The Goodnight-Loving Trail on June 6, 1866 followed the old Butterfield
Overland Mail route in order to make use of any water holes still open
there to New Mexico. The herd consisted of 2,000 longhorns.
Goodnight himself recalled a scene when, after three days of tortured
thirst, the cattle approached the waters of the Pecos. After
running the final miles to the river, "those behind pushed the ones in
the lead right on across the river before they had time to stop and
drink." The crush at the river was so great that more than 100
cattle were drowned or trampled to death.
Joel D. Hoy, his family, and cowboys in 1867 were driving 1,000 head of
cattle across Horsehead Crossing when they were attacked by 150 Indians.
When the Indians temporarily fell back with some of the cattle, Hoy and
some of the cowboys pushed a wagon with the wounded upstream and took
shelter in the abandoned stage station. At the same time, Ben Gooch
and the cowboys of a second herd reached the crossing only to become similar
victims. For two days Indians attacked the two parties before
withdrawing in the face of a one hundred man prospecting party under Jacob
Schnively and Colonel William Dalrymple.
A cemetery was noted by Charles Goodnight in the 1870's-thirteen graves,
twelve the result of gunfights. Horsehead and the Pecos grew so
notorious for outlaws that to "pecos" a man was to kill him and roll his
body over the bank of the Pecos.
The last herds were pushed across Horsehead Crossing in 1928 and officials
placed a Texas Centennial marker in the vicinity in 1936 and subsequently
set aside a west-bank plat supposedly encompassing the crossing, knowledge
of Horsehead Crossing came mostly from legends. Destructive floods
that widened the moat-like river to as much as a mile in 1929 and 1941
altered the banks.
Horsehead Crossing has been described as a big, wide crossing with as much
as one hundred yards of gently sloping banks with a rock bottom that
allowed for fording the river. In some areas along the Pecos River
quicksand can also be found.
Colonel Thomas B. Hunt's sketch, made during his 1869 scout of the region,
situating the crossing on a straightaway, an 1890 Pecos County survey map
places it a short distance above the present marker; and a United States
Department of Agriculture high-altitude photograph taken in 1961, shows
the historic wagon road approaching the Pecos from Castle Gap to the east-
northeast and, within a few hundred yards of the river, branching into
four or five ill-defined trails that curve upstream to merge into a single
road, from which a side trail veers to the Pecos. On the opposite
bank and a little upstream, patterns suggest wagon roads exiting in a "V"
pattern. Also Colonel Thomas B. Hunt's 1869 map shows an army camp
on both the east and west side of Horsehead Crossing to the south of the
old station.
The 1936 Texas Centennial marker is accessible on State Hwy. No. 11 between
Imperial and Girvin.
Sources:
Old West; April 1969, Clayton W. Williams
True West; August 1992, Patrick Dearen
The Treasure Legends of Castle Gap; October 1965, Jeff Henderson
Fort Concho Its Why and Wherefore; 1957, J. N. Gregory
Story of the Great American West; 1977, Reader's Digest
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Juan Cordona Salt Lake is a waterless natural deposit and and has been
used for the past 300 years. The salt lake was named after Juan
Cordova and was incorrectly spelled on early maps; hence - Cordona.
Apaches were encountered here by explorers in 1683. During the Civil
War, 1861-1865, a seven family San Saba wagon train traded water-melons
and other goods to the Indians for the much needed salt.
In 1912 -1914 a 36 burro train hauled salt from the lake, and as recent as
1930 commercial salt shipments went out to Midland and Odessa, Texas.
MARKER ON THE NORTH COURTHOUSE LAWN. MARKER DEDICATED
MARCH 2, 1969.
Reprinted with permission of the Crane County Chamber of Commerce.
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Last updated
28 September, 2023
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