DUANE
Duane's take
Now here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Giddings' Pecos Station, out here in Pecos County. Pull up a chair by the fire and let me lay this out for you. Mid-nineteenth century, West Texas is not a place you drift through casually.
You need a plan, you need supplies, and if you're lucky, you need a stagecoach. The U.S. government understood that much, and in 1851 they contracted with a man named Henry Skillman to run the San Antonio to El Paso Stage line. Out this way, the route followed the historic Chihuahua Trail — also called the Lower Road — a path designed to carry U.S. mail across some of the hardest country on the continent.
Before long, passenger and freight delivery joined the mail run, because if you're going that far anyway, you might as well haul everything. Now, among the drivers working that line were two names that tend to stick with people. Henry Skillman himself rode it, and so did William — and his friends called him Bigfoot — Wallace.
That's the kind of cast that makes a story feel like it can't possibly be true, and yet here we are. In 1854, a man named George H. Giddings took over the San Antonio to El Paso line, and he did something practical and ambitious in one stroke: he built a series of stage stations across the region to hold the whole operation together.
Then in 1858, he established one of those stations near the S crossing of the Pecos River. That crossing had a name and a reputation, and Giddings planted his post right beside it. What he put there wasn't fancy, but it was built to work.
Two structures, raised from adobe, limestone, and wood. The larger one served as a kitchen and dining room for the teamsters who came through — weary men grateful for a hot room. The smaller structure gave them sleeping quarters.
Out back stood an adobe or high pole corral with a wide gate, and inside that corral they kept dozens of horses and mules, the beating heart of any stage operation. Water came from a hand-dug well nearby, formerly an existing spring. Everything about this place said: we intend to last.
And then, early 1862, a driver of the stage to Fort Lancaster brought word that Indians had destroyed Pecos Station. Just like that, the site was abandoned. What had been a functioning outpost on the edge of the known world went quiet.
Seven years later, in 1869, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas B. Hunt led a detachment past the ruins. He recorded the position — west bank of the Pecos, two and a half miles from Camp Melbourne — and then kept moving.
But here's the thing about remote places: they have a way of resisting certainty. The exact location of the station remained in doubt for years. Decades, even.
It took archeological investigations in the early twenty-first century to settle the question. Stone foundations came up out of the ground. Cultural artifacts from the 1850s surfaced, and with them, evidence of even earlier Native American occupation at the same spot.
A place people had been drawn to, long before Giddings ever put a name on it. All of that, to mark a kitchen, a bunkhouse, a corral full of mules, and a hand-dug well on the west bank of the Pecos. Turns out some frontier outposts don't disappear — they just wait for someone patient enough to find them.
What the marker says
In the mid-19th century, stagecoach lines were a primary means of moving people, mail and supplies through the region. The U.S. government contracted with Henry Skillman for the San Antonio-El Paso Stage line in 1851. In this area, the route ran along the historic Chihuahua Trail, also known as the Lower Road, which was designed to carry U.S. mail. The service soon added passenger and freight delivery. Skillman and William "Bigfoot" Wallace were two of the better known drivers. In 1854, George H. Giddings took over the San Antonio to El Paso line and created a series of stage stations in the area. In 1858, he established one near the "S" crossing of the Pecos River. It had two structures built of adobe, limestone and wood. Teamsters used the larger building as a kitchen and dining room and the smaller structure as sleeping quarters. An adobe or high pole corral with a wide gate stood behind the buildings, housing dozens of horses and mules. Water came from a nearby hand-dug well, formerly an existing spring. In early 1862, a driver of the stage to Fort Lancaster reported Indians had destroyed Pecos Station, and the site was abandoned. Lt. Col. Thomas B. Hunt led a detachment past the ruins in 1869, giving the position as the west bank of the Pecos, 2.5 miles from Camp Melbourne. The exact location of the remote post, however, remained in doubt over the years until archeological investigations in the early 21st century. Stone foundations and cultural artifacts from the 1850s, along with evidence of earlier Native American occupation, helped identify this isolated scene of frontier life. (2007)