DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Castle Gap has to say — and friend, this one's got layers. When the morning sun climbs up over Castle Mountain out in Crane County, something shows itself on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. A natural gap in the Castle Mountain Range — a hole, really, in a mountain that from a distance looks for all the world like a castle with a hole punched right through its wall.
Men moving west across the unknown reaches of west Texas looked out and saw exactly that, and so the hole became the gap, and the gap became Castle Gap. That's the marker's telling, and it's not a modest one. Now, before any European ever laid eyes on it, nomadic Native American Indians were moving through that country.
We know because flint arrow points have been found there. Somebody knapped those points, somebody carried them, somebody passed through that gap in times so old we call them prehistoric. The mountain was already old business.
The first recorded European visitors were Spanish explorers, arriving in 1535. After that, the west started filling in, slowly and then all at once. Gold prospectors bound for California came through and stopped to rest.
You can imagine what that fresh water meant to them — because right there, on the north wall inside the gap, there was a seeping source of fresh water. Not a river, not a spring you could swim in, just a seep in a rock wall. But in that country, in that heat, a seep in a rock wall is the difference between making it and not.
From 1858 to 1861, the Butterfield Overland Mail Coaches came rumbling through. Twenty-four days, St. Louis to San Francisco.
The coaches stopped at the small adobe-walled Castle Gap station — stopped just long enough to swap out for fresh teams — then pushed on twelve miles to the southwest to ford the Pecos River at Horsehead Crossing. No lingering. No sightseeing.
Every hour counted on a twenty-four-day run. By 1866 the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail was well established through the gap, funneling tens of thousands of longhorn cattle toward the northern markets. Tens of thousands.
Through one gap in one mountain range. The ground must have trembled. And then there's the legend.
Same era, same gap. An aide to Emperor Maximillian of Mexico — fleeing the country, laden with his emperor's gold and jewels — stopped to rest in Castle Gap. And there, according to legend, he buried it.
The gold. The jewels. All of it, somewhere in those rocks, on the north wall where the water seeps and the flint points lay in the dirt.
All the pioneer trails through Castle Gap are dormant now. The Butterfield coaches don't run. The longhorns are gone.
The Spanish explorers are five centuries past. But that seep in the north wall is still there, and if legend holds — somewhere beneath the morning shadow of a mountain that looks like a castle — so is the treasure.
What the marker says
When day breaks and the morning sun rises above Castle Mountain, a distinct landmark appears on the outer perimeter of the Chihuahuan Desert. The landmark of Castle Gap is a natural gap in the Castle Mountain Range, which protrudes from the King Mountain range in Upton County. In prehistoric times, nomadic Native American Indians traversed the area, as evidenced by flint arrow points found there. As men began to move west and explore the unknown region of west Texas, they saw in the distance a mountain that looked like a castle with a hole in the wall. As a result the hole became known as the gap in Castle Mountains, but is now called Castle Gap. This gap provided easy and time-saving access to the other side of the mountain range. Within the gap on the north wall was a seeping source of fresh water, a much needed life-sustaining source. The first recorded European visitors were Spanish explorers in 1535. Many more pioneers followed, as the gold prospectors travelling to California stopped for rest. From 1858 to 1861, the Butterfield Overland Mail Coaches rumbled through the pass on their 24-day journey from St. Louis to San Francisco, stopping at the small adobe walled castle gap station only long enough for fresh teams, then moving on to ford the Pecos River at Horse Head Crossing, 12 miles to the southwest. By 1866 the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail was well established, through the gap, funneling tens of thousands of longhorn cattle to the northern markets. During the same time, legend holds, a treasure-laden aide of Emperor Maximillian of Mexico, fleeing the country, buried his gold and jewels as he stopped to rest in the gap. All the pioneer trails are now dormant. (1966, 2013)