Pumpville

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Pumpville, out in Val Verde County. Now, it all starts with a railroad and a thirsty engine. Back in 1882, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway was pushing a new line through this stretch of Texas, and steam engines, well, they drink.

They drink a lot. So the railroad did what railroads do: they found a spot, and two and a half miles north of where that marker stands today, they built a pumphouse, a depot, and the other facilities you need to keep iron horses moving across the desert. That water stop was the seed.

And like most seeds dropped in dry ground, it surprised everybody by taking root. A community grew up around those rail amenities. It went by the name Samuels at first, and then somewhere along the way it got renamed Pumpville.

Folks there worked for the rail company, or they worked the ranches spreading out across the surrounding country. Those ranches counted on the stop too, using it to get their livestock to market. So the whole place had a purpose, a real one.

Post office, schools, a general store. The kind of bones that make a town feel like it plans to stay. Then came the diesel engine.

The diesel engine does not require water. Simple as that. No need for a pumphouse, no need for those structures, and so the railroad removed them.

Just like that, the reason the place existed in the first place was gone. But here is the part worth sittin with: Pumpville did not disappear. The ranching community remained.

And that townsite, stripped of its railroad bones, still stands as a focal point for the local population to this day. Some places exist because of what they have. Pumpville exists because of who stayed.

What the marker says

In 1882, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway created a water stop for steam engines on a new line through this area. Two and a half miles north of this site, the company built a pumphouse, depot and other facilities. A community first known as Samuels and later renamed Pumpville developed around the rail amenities. Residents worked for the rail company or area ranches, which used the stop as a way to get livestock to market. With the advent of the diesel engine, which did not require water, the railroad removed its structures, and only the ranching community remained. The townsite, which once boasted a post office, schools and general store, remains a focal point for the local population. (2005)