Horsehead Crossing is a ford on the

Pecos River The Pecos River ( es, Río Pecos) originates in north-central New Mexico and flows into Texas, emptying into the Rio Grande. Its headwaters are on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County north of Pecos, New Mexico ...

in Crane County, south of

Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Historically, it was a major landmark on the trail west as one of a few fordable sections of the Pecos in

West Texas West Texas is a loosely defined region in the U.S. state of Texas, generally encompassing the arid and semiarid lands west of a line drawn between the cities of Wichita Falls, Abilene, and Del Rio. No consensus exists on the boundary betwee ...

, and as the first reliable source of water for about 75 miles on the route from the east. The location as marked by a state historical marker is 31°14' N, 102°29' W, though debate exists as to possible alternate locations in that area. U.S. Geological Survey locates it at .

History

Horsehead Crossing was the primary crossing on the Pecos for the

Comanche Trail The Comanche Trail, sometimes called the Comanche War Trail or the Comanche Trace, was a travel route in Texas established by the nomadic Comanche nation. Description The route ran from the Comanche summer hunting grounds to the Rio Grande, w ...

from the

Llano Estacado The Llano Estacado (), sometimes translated into English as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North A ...

south to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It was probably a prehistoric crossing by earlier Native Americans. The ford was mapped in 1849 by

Randolph B. Marcy Randolph Barnes Marcy (April 9, 1812 – November 22, 1887) was an officer in the United States Army, chiefly noted for his frontier guidebook, the ''Prairie Traveler'' (1859), based on his own extensive experience of pioneering in the west. This p ...

, commander of an army escort for parties on their way to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

on the San Antonio-El Paso Road. In 1858, the crossing became an important stop on the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially the Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service i ...

route from

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. In 1866, Charles Goodnight and

Oliver Loving Oliver Loving (December 4, 1812 – September 25, 1867) was an American rancher and cattle driver. Together with Charles Goodnight, he developed the Goodnight-Loving Trail. He was mortally wounded by Native Americans while on a cattle drive. ...

blazed their famous cattle trail, which came to this point and turned upriver. Decline of cattle drives and completion of two railroads across West Texas in the early 1880s led to the abandonment of the crossing. The source of the name "Horsehead" has been attributed to horse skulls said to have marked the banks. This may have been due to

Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...

s, who marked the crossing for easier identification, or the abundance of animals that died at the crossing from drowning, quicksand, or over-drinking while being driven along the Comanche Trail returning from Mexico.

References

External links

*
Sibley Nature Center: Horsehead Crossing
{{Authority control Geography of Texas Geography of Crane County, Texas Butterfield Overland Mail in Texas History of Texas American frontier Stagecoach stops in the United States

History

See also

References

External links