For those of you who are fans of Texas history and the west, the Pecos County Historical Commission will be hosting a 2-day celebration at historic Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, October 30-31.
Here is the promotional video.
Hope to see you there!!!

Pecos 45 said:

---

For those of you who are fans of Texas history and the west, the Pecos County Historical Commission will be hosting a 2-day celebration at historic Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River, October 30-31.
Here is the promotional video.
Hope to see you there!!!

---

This is cool!

The site is out in the middle of nowhere, and there's really nothing there except the granite marker the State of Texas put there in the Centennial (1936) but it has been all shot up by D-bags who seem to "tolerate rude behavior."
BUT, a lot of history is in that ground at that spot: The Comanche War Trail, the 49ers heading to California, the Butterfield-Overland Stage and the Goodnight-Loving Trail.

You have to go to Girvin, then turn on FM 11, THEN turn down a dirt road, but we will have everything set up there to welcome all comers.
Should be interesting, and fun.

Girvin?

PA.

- UL

... and, Go Spurs Go!

William, please click the hyperlink in my previous post
(Hint, it's a long way from Waco)

I get it.


(George Girvin)

That dude was real. He coulda lit it up in today's NBA.

Pecos 45 said:

---

William, please click the hyperlink in my previous post
(Hint, it's a long way from Waco)

---

lololol

Pecos 45 said:

---

The site is out in the middle of nowhere, and there's really nothing there except the granite marker the State of Texas put there in the Centennial (1936) but it has been all shot up by D-bags who seem to "tolerate rude behavior."
BUT, a lot of history is in that ground at that spot: The Comanche War Trail, the 49ers heading to California, the Butterfield-Overland Stage and the Goodnight-Loving Trail.

You have to go to Girvin, then turn on FM 11, THEN turn down a dirt road, but we will have everything set up there to welcome all comers.
Should be interesting, and fun.

---

When a man of your pedigree classifies some place as "out in the middle of nowhere", I take that as a serious warning.

As a child of concrete and steel with no innate sense of direction, I admire my forebears who could tell the top of one rolling Texas hill from another with sufficient accuracy as to locate another source of water or civilization.

Yes, this IS "out in the middle of nowhere."
It was the first water that Goodnight and Loving hit after leaving the Concho River. They went nearly three days without water until striking the Pecos River.

Here's a good drone view of the site, with some historical perspective how it got its name.
Once you hit the Pecos River, you could follow it north and have water the rest of the way.
Loving got into his fight with the Indians further up the Pecos, immortalized in "Lonesome Dove."
He (Loving, not Duvall!!!) sent One-Armed Bill Wilson to go back to the herd to get help. (In the movie it is Pea Eye)
Wilson stripped down to his longjohns, swam downstream past the Indians, then walked BAREFOOT back to the herd to tell them of Loving's plight.
I have no idea how he did that. This is hard country to be walking in, much less in your underwear and barefoot.

Kirby, what's your top recommendation for a history of and/or a historical novel (other than Lonesome Dove) recounting with accuracy the real life of cattle drives crossing the Pecos specifically or West Texas generally.

Anything beyond the Goodnight stories that you might recommend?

The best account of the Goodnight-Loving drive is the book by J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman.
Haley was able to talk to Goodnight in the 1920s and get his oral history. This is eye-witness stuff, unvarnished.
You can get a paperback on Amazon.
It contains all of Goodnight's life, including his ranch near Pueblo, CO and the JA Ranch near Amarillo, not just the Goodnight-Loving drive.

Another book I really like is Andy Adams, Log of a Cowboy. It's not a true oral history, but recollections of Adams from his days on the trail.

The other is We Pointed Them North by Teddy, E.C. "Blue" Abbott.

It may take a while for folks to get accustomed to how people talked back then, but all of the books give you a realistic picture of cowboy life.

As far as the Pecos River country, Patrick Dearen has written several good books on this area. One of them is Crossing Rio Pecos. Another is Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier. Dearen also wrote A Cowboy of the Pecos. Most are self-published, but they ARE available on the Internet. He details his books with diary entries and letters, so it's all well-sourced, and danged informative.

Castle Gap and the Pecos Frontier is available from TCU press, or at least it used to be.

Of course I have my book, Texas Cowboy, too.