A Couple of Good Stories, a Historic Route Rerouted and Wild Rose Pass at Dawn



Click for a closer view and see that the current road
is not the historic Wild Rose Pass
From the Claytons Overlook exhibit at
Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center

Taken at dawn yesterday, looking north

Clayton's Overlook exhibit at
Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center

 

 

Taken at dawn yesterday, looking south

Yesterday in the low light of dawn, we drove through Wild Rose Pass between Fort Davis and Balmorhea.  Always a lovely drive, we were cheered to see so much GREEN, an welcome result of the summer rains we've been so lucky to receive. 

This area burned hot and long during last year's wildfires and was BLACK for much of the spring and summer of 2011, but now, there is vegetation growing all over the pass.

 

A popular scenic drive and cycling route (riding it downhill from Fort Davis to Balmorhea is so much fun!), it is also an important historic passageway.

The Texas State Historical Association posts this on their "Handbook of Texas Online" "WILD ROSE PASS. Wild Rose Pass is ten miles northeast of Fort Davis in east central Jeff Davis County (at 30°43' N, 103°47' W). State Highway 17 goes through the pass, which is two miles long. Elevations in the pass range from 4,320 feet to 4,546 feet above sea level, some 900 to 700 feet lower than the unnamed neighboring peaks to the east and west. The pass was supposedly named by Lt. William H. C. Whiting, who traveled through the area in March 1849, for the Demaree rose, which grows at springs and seeps in the area. Local legend has it that William A. (Bigfoot) Wallace, who in the 1850s was a driver on the Skillman mail route from San Antonio to El Paso, once shot a buck atop a nearby cliff in Wild Rose Pass. The dead animal toppled over the cliff, slid down the mountainside, and came to a halt directly in front of the coach, whereupon Wallace reportedly said, "Them's the first mountains I ever seen where the game comes to heel after being killed." Another story holds that in 1859 a band of Mescalero Apaches waylaid a mail coach, killed the guard, and made off with the mail. The Indians became so absorbed by the illustrations in the captured newspapers, however, that they allowed themselves to be caught by pursuing soldiers. Fourteen Mescaleros were killed, and thereafter the Apaches believed that pictures were bad luck and avoided them."



Fort Davis before a Storm

We've been blessed lately with some much-needed rains, and the skies can get pretty exciting (and beautiful) right before a storm.  Right now, the desert lands are greening up nicely and that makes traveling in the region a delight.  Pictured here are the officers quarters at Fort Davis National Historic Site, right before a downpour!

One of the best preserved frontier forts in the West, from 1854 to 1891, Fort Davis was strategically located to protect emigrants, mail coaches, and freight wagons on the Trans-Pecos portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road and on the Chihuahua Trail.  Now part of the National Parks Service, the Fort continues to restore its buildings and add exhibits, most recently a wonderful exhibit on medical care in the fort's hospital buildings!

Stagecoach Route Remnants

This little strip of road looks unremarkable, but it is historic with a capital H.  Located on the grounds of Fort Davis National Historic Site, this is a remnant of the old San Antonio-El Paso road, a stagecoach route.

The Fort's website says this:

" In October 1855, Second Lieutenant Zenas R. Bliss, Eighth U. S. Infantry, arrived at Fort Davis seventeen days after boarding the westbound stage in San Antonio. "The Post was the most beautifully situated of any that I have ever seen. It was in a narrow canyon with perpendicular sides, the walls of which were about 200 feet in height," the young officer later wrote. The necessity for the post, located some 400 miles from San Antonio and 200 miles from Franklin (present-day El Paso), stemmed from demands for protection on the San Antonio-El Paso Road. A major link along the most southern route to California, the road experienced an upsurge of travel in the early 1850s following the discovery of gold in California. As travel along the road increased, so did Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache raids into Mexico. Emigrants, mail carriers and merchants journeyed in constant fear of the raiding warriors who traveled between Mexico and their homelands to the north. Despite its picturesque terrain, the buildings were uncomfortable and difficult to keep warm. "I remember once in a snow storm the snow blew under my bed . . . and it stayed there several days without melting," wrote Lieutenant Bliss. In 1856, six stone barracks with thatched roofs and flagstone floors replaced inadequate enlisted men’s quarters. Along with the bakery, blacksmith shop, and a warehouse, they were the only substantial structures of the first fort."

And this:

"The first Fort Davis served as a retreat for thousands of emigrants, freighters, and travelers during the decade preceding the Civil War. It provided protection for the U. S. Mail and saw the establishment of a number of stage stations and military posts in the region, including Fort Stockton and Fort Quitman. It was also an influencing factor in 1859 for the Butterfield Overland Mail to change its route to El Paso. The new route came through Fort Davis instead of following the road through the Guadalupe Mountains. Although the post did little to reduce Indian activity in western Texas, its presence encouraged travel on the San Antonio-El Paso Road and settlement in the Trans-Pecos region."

Straight off the Fort property to the east on "Fort Street" is the Overland Trail Museum, a community museum showing early life in Jeff Davis County.  Definitely worth a stop, visitors not only enjoy the museum's exhibits but the fact that it is along the still unpaved, original San Antonio-El Paso Road.

You can read more about the first Fort Davis (1854-1862) and its history here.http://www.nps.gov/foda/historyculture/firstfortdavis.htm