DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, 1875 is the year you want to keep in mind. The land out here in the Permian Basin was not mapped.
Not charted. Not known — at least not to the folks drawing lines on paper back east. And into that wide, arid unknown rode Colonel William R.
Shafter with a company of soldiers. They set out from Fort Concho — that's where San Angelo sits today — and they were heading for Monument Springs, New Mexico. Their job was to cross the dry plains and account for every vital watering place along the way.
Out here, water wasn't a convenience. It was the whole game. You find it, you map it, you survive.
You don't, well. Now here's where the story picks up pace. Somewhere along that trail — right through this very stretch of Andrews County — Colonel Shafter found himself defending his party against Indians.
And Shafter, being the kind of man who apparently did not believe in standing still when he could be movin, gave chase. Twelve miles to the northwest those Indians ran. Twelve miles.
And at the end of that chase, Colonel Shafter found something he hadn't been looking for: a salt lake. A lake that would carry his name from that moment forward. Shafter Lake.
Found not by a surveyor's careful plan, but by a twelve-mile pursuit across the flats. When the expedition was done, the maps they brought back told the story of a formerly unknown land. And those maps — those careful records of watering places and trails and salt lakes — opened the Permian Basin to settlement.
The whole thing, cracked open by one company of soldiers and a colonel who wouldn't quit a chase. And this town, right here, is the only town today that Shafter's Trail still passes through. The trail is still here.
The name is still on the lake. Some things out on these plains just stick.
What the marker says
In 1875, Col. Wm. R. Shafter and a company of soldiers traveled from Fort Concho (where San Angelo is today) to Monument Springs, N. Mex., charting the arid plains, mapping all the vital watering places. This marker is in the only town of today through which Shafter's Trail passes. Here Col. Shafter, defending his party, chased Indians who ran 12 miles to the northwest. Thus he found the salt lake known ever after by his name. His expedition's maps of this formerly unknown land opened the Permian Basin to settlement. (1965)