DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this stretch of ground in Val Verde County. Now, picture a road. Not a road with stoplights and painted lines, but a genuine nineteenth-century lifeline, running all the way from Chihuahua, Mexico, up to the Texas Gulf port of Indianola.
They called it the Chihuahua Road, and friend, it earned that name every mile of the way. The whole thing was opened to exploit rich trade in Mexican silver and gold. Silver and gold.
You open a road for reasons like that, and word tends to get around. Sure enough, before long that road was carryin' just about everything a person could imagine. Every type of goods, adventurers, settlers, soldiers.
And then came the Forty-Niners, those restless souls bound for the California gold rush, rolling through Texas on their way to chase a different kind of fortune out west. The road never asked where you were headed. It just took you there.
Now the vehicles that traveled it were something to behold in their own right. Stagecoaches, wagons, ox-carts. And then there were the traveling ambulances, which, before you picture what you're picturing, were light carriages riding on four-foot wheels.
Practical, sturdy, built for a road that did not coddle anyone. For decades this route held the region together commercially. But in 1877, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway came to San Antonio, and just like that, the Chihuahua Road lost its commercial importance.
The iron horse arrived, and the old road stepped aside. That's the thing about lifelines. They last exactly as long as they're needed, and not a day more.
What the marker says
The Chihuahua Road was a nineteenth-century lifeline that connected Chihuahua, Mexico, with the Texas port of Indianola. Opened to exploit rich trade in Mexican silver and gold, the road eventually carried every type of goods, adventurers, settlers, soldiers, and "Forty-Niners" bound for the California gold rush. The road was traversed by many types of vehicles: stagecoaches, wagons, ox-carts, and traveling ambulances, which were light carriages with 4-foot wheels. Not until the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway came to San Antonio in 1877 did this road lose its commercial importance. (1968)