San Antonio-El Paso Road

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The San Antonio-El Paso Road, now there's a stretch of Texas that demanded something from every soul who crossed it. Westward expeditions pushed trails from San Antonio to El Paso in the late 1840s, and they didn't give you just one road to worry about.

There were two of them: the upper route and the lower route, and both of them converged at the Pecos River before threading through the Davis Mountains. Two roads becoming one, out in some of the hardest country Texas had to offer. That tells you something right there about what this land required of travelers.

It required commitment. It required nerve. And eventually, it required somebody to make it a business.

That somebody was Henry Skillman. Born in 1814, and a man who clearly wasn't content to let the desert win, Skillman began a courier service along the road in 1850 and was awarded a United States Government contract to carry the mail. Think about what that meant: riding that route on a schedule, in that country, when the road was still more rumor than road.

Then in 1854, Skillman formed a partnership with George H. Giddings, born in 1823, and the two of them got serious about infrastructure. They established relay stations along the route; waypoints where riders and horses could be swapped out and the mail kept moving.

One of those stations sat at a brand-new United States Army post called Fort Davis. When the Civil War came, it reshuffled everything. Control of the area passed to the Confederates, and here's where Giddings shows you who he was: he kept the mail running, this time for the new government.

The service didn't stop. It just changed flags. By 1867, after the war's conclusion, Fort Davis was occupied by four companies of the 9th U.S.

Cavalry. Federal reoccupation brought the stage and courier routes back to heavier use, and travelers moving through this country were frequently accompanied by Army escorts out of Fort Davis and other posts. The road had teeth, and everyone knew it.

Then came the 1880s, and with them the railroads. Once the iron rails reached West Texas, use of the overland roads declined sharply. That's the word the marker uses: sharply.

Not slowly, not gently. The old trails didn't disappear overnight, though. They still gave new settlers a way in, and the army still used them as links between forts.

But the era of the great overland run was winding down. Here's the thing, though; the road never entirely surrendered. Vestiges of the old San Antonio-El Paso Overland Road can still be seen in Fort Davis and the surrounding areas to this day.

The expeditions that opened this country in the late 1840s left marks deep enough that no railroad, no century, has fully erased them. That's not nothing. In country this big and this hard, leaving any mark at all is an achievement worth remembering.

What the marker says

Westward expeditions opened trails from San Antonio to El Paso in the late 1840s. Two routes, called the upper and lower roads, converged at the Pecos River to traverse the Davis Mountains. Henry Skillman (1814-1864) began a courier service along the road in 1850 and was awarded a U. S. Government contract to carry the mail. He formed a partnership with George H. Giddings (1823-1902) in 1854, and they established relay stations along the route, including one at the new U. S. Army Post at Fort Davis. During the Civil War, control of the area passed to the Confederates, and Giddings continued mail service for the new government. By 1867 Fort Davis was occupied by four companies of the 9th U. S. Cavalry. After Federal reoccupation, stage and courier routes were more frequently utilized, with travelers often accompanied by Army escorts from Fort Davis and other posts. After the arrival of railroads in West Texas in the 1880s, use of overland roads declined sharply, though the trails did provide access to new settlers and were still used by the army as links between forts. Vestiges of the Old San antonio-El Paso Overland Road can still be seen in Fort Davis and surrounding areas. (Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986)