Mustang Spring

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight from the record. Way out here in Martin County, there's a place where the ground offers up something precious: water. They call it Mustang Spring, and people have known about it for a long, long time.

As early as 1849, Captain Randolph B. Marcy of the U.S. Army came through here.

He was making his way from Fort Smith, Arkansas, all the way to El Paso, and this watering place was worth stoppin for. Think about what that means, out on a route like that. You keep your eyes open for water.

You remember where it is. You tell people. By 1859, somebody had written it down, put it on the record as Mustang Pond, two miles north of Emigrant's Road.

That name, that description, somebody cared enough to make sure it wasn't forgotten. And here's the thing that gives this place its weight: it was the first water west of Big Spring. The first water.

On a journey pushing into that dry country, that fact wasn't a footnote. It was the whole story. The state of Texas thought this place was worth remembering too, and erected this marker in 1936.

Captain Marcy stopped here in 1849. Travelers counted on it. And the spring is still here, still part of the landscape, still the first water west of Big Spring.

Some things earn their place on the map.

What the marker says

Watering place known as early as 1849 when Captain Randolph B. Marcy of the U. S. Army stopped here en route from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to El Paso. Described in 1859 as "Mustang Pond, two miles north of Emigrant's Road". First water west of Big Spring. Erected by the State of Texas 1936