DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Greene Springs — and friend, this one goes back a long, long way. Now, most places in Scurry County have a story. This one has about a dozen, stacked on top of each other like layers of sandstone.
And that's fitting, because sandstone is exactly what we're talking about. These springs — Greene Springs — are the first live, running water to flow into the South Fork of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. Not a trickle, not a seasonal thing.
A constant flow, collecting in large potholes carved right into a sandstone formation. The kind of water that, once you find it out here on the open plains, you don't forget. And nobody did forget.
That's the whole story, really. For many centuries before any settler ever laid eyes on this place, Indians were coming here. How do we know?
Because the sandstone creek walls still carry the evidence — food grinding holes worn deep into the rock, and petroglyphs, actual carvings, pressed into the stone by hands we'll never be able to put a name to. That stone held on to those marks. It's still holding them.
Then came the military. In 1849, Captain R. B.
Marcy brought his unit through and camped at these springs. Then in 1856, General Robert E. Lee did the same.
Two separate expeditions, two separate moments in history, drawn to the very same potholes of running water. After them came the buffalo hunters. The freighters.
Emigrants pushing west and north, looking for whatever they were looking for. All of them stopped here. Because out on that open land, you stop where the water is.
You just do. Now, somewhere around 1881, a horse rancher named J. I.
Greene — Jim Greene, they called him — moved his family to this place. And that's when the springs got a name to go with all that history. Greene and his family didn't roll up with a fine house waiting on them.
They moved into dugouts. Two of them, dug right into a nearby hill. They lived that way until 1890, when the first house finally went up.
And here's the part that'll stay with you — the remains of those dugouts are still visible in that hill today. Still there. Since 1964, the Scurry Chapter of the South Plains Archeological Society has been doing careful explorations around these springs.
What they've pulled from this ground tells the same story the sandstone walls do — stone knives, scrapers, beads, potsherds, arrow points. The physical record of people, across centuries, coming to this one constant, living source of water. Centuries of hands.
Centuries of stopping. And the springs just kept running.
What the marker says
Located at a place occupied by man for centuries, these springs compose the first, live (running) water that flows into the South Fork of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River. The waters, which collect in large potholes in a sandstone formation, have produced a constant flow since first discovered by settlers. For many centuries before, they were also visited by Indians. Food grinding holes and petroglyphs (rock carvings) on the sandstone creek walls give evidence of this early use. Since 1964, explorations by the Scurry Chapter, South Plains Archeological Society, have produced many artifacts such as stone knives and scrapers, beads, potsherds, and arrow points. In the nineteenth century, military units under Capt. R. B. Marcy (1849) and Gen. Robert E. Lee (1856) camped at Greene Springs. Somewhat later, buffalo hunters, freighters, and emigrants moving west and north stopped for water at this beautiful place. The springs were named about 1881 for J. I. "Jim" Greene, a horse rancher who moved here at that time. Greene and his family lived in two dugouts until their first house was built in 1890. Remains of the dugouts are still visible today in a nearby hill. (1968)