It was time to head back to Midland and I had three days to get there. I had found a few places that intrigued me enough to add them to the drive. And for that, the road took me to Comstock.
After packing up the room, turning in the key and taking a pause to watch the sunrise, it was time to go. Leaving Terlingua behind, I gassed up the car and headed back into the park. I hadn’t planned to stop, but the drive itself is definitely worth it.
It was still nice and early, so I pulled off at the trailhead for one of my favorites, Dog Canyon. Unlike some of the other hikes I had done, this was one was super easy. It’s two miles out and two back. The bulk of it is just flat. The rest is a still fairly easy walk through a rocky wash. I was able to keep a fairly fast pace throughout. One of these days I want to time this hike when one side of the canyon isn’t in shadow.
A few miles south of Marathon is a Border Patrol checkpoint. The last two times I had to stop, they looked me over, asked if I was an American citizen and I drove on. This time they had cones out blocking the entrance. I just drove on by.
The last two times I did this trip, I stopped into Big Bend Pizza. The sign on the door said they opened at noon. I still had forty minutes. So, I headed into town. How I missed this the other two times is a mystery. It looks like the old depot, now turned into a private residence.
In town I killed a half hour with a cup of coffee at V-6 Coffee attached to the Gage Hotel. I sipped my coffee, enjoyed the wifi and watched the trains roll by.
Big bend Pizza still wasn’t open at 12:15 and there was no sign of life, so I picked up Hwy 90 east and drove on. I was headed east and had an easy hundred and forty miles of Hwy 90 to go. This was a new stretch of Texas for me and I wanted to take it all in.
A little over a half hour later, I pulled into Sanderson. The first thing that caught my eye was a large metal dinosaur sticking out of the local hardware store.
And yet another Big Chicken...
The only place I found to eat was called The Road House. Sure, the sign out front was broken and it looked a little questionable. But looks can be deceiving. The first thing I noticed were the crucifixes on the wall. Some were made out of heavy duty copper line perhaps a quarter inch thick. A few of the others were made from horseshoes.
Amy, my waitress had that certain twinkle in the eye and natural smile that instantly makes customers feel welcome. After she took my order and walked away, I noticed she also had a small handgun clipped to her belt. Welcome to Texas folks.
This was a first for me, on the menu, Spam Burger. I passed.
Lunch was delicious and the portions large. I wasn’t hungry for the rest of the day. I left Sanderson and continued east on Hwy 90.
Along the way, I passed through the once bustling community of Dryden. It’s a former railroad town, built here in 1882 as a stop along the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. The line was being extended to El Paso and creating towns along the way. Dryden housed a track maintenance depot and was named after chief engineer Eugene Dryden.
With the new spur brought opportunities to ship cattle from the local ranches to San Antonio. Dryden began to grow.
The largest ranch was opened and operated by the Pecos Land and Cattle Company. The company built the local school, the hotel and drilled wells for the railroad and the community. Between 1914 and 1917 they shipped over 55,000 head of cattle to market.
Not only was the railroad shipped Texas cattle, it was shipping a comparable number from a ranch just across the border, owned by the President of Mexico, Francisco Madero. That is until he was assassinated in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution.
Dryden’s population peaked around one hundred, but began to falter. The large ranches grew smaller and the interstate syphoned off the road traffic. The last census had the population as being a mere thirteen. The population of Terrell County was listed as a mere 984.
One more story from Dryden before I move on. One the night of March 13, 1912, one of the last train robberies in the state occurred there. The train had stopped in Dryden to take on water. As is started pulling out of the depot, a pair of masked outlaws climbed aboard. They ordered the engineer to stop the train at a bridge halfway between Dryden and Sanderson. They then proceeded to uncouple the passenger car and caboose. The plan was to take the engine, mail and baggage cars a little further up the line where the train robbers had some horses waiting.
One bandit stayed with the engineer while the other escorted the Wells Fargo express agent to the baggage car. The agent, David Trousdale, picked up an ice mallet and hit it inside his jacket. As the second robber was filling a bag with money, Trousdale hit him in the head with the mallet killing him. He took the robber’s gun and shot his accomplice.
Ben Kilpatrick, the engineer threw the train in reverse, recoupled the passenger cars and continued on into Sanderson.
I left Dryden and continued east, looking for Farm to Market Road 1865. I was looking for the town of Pumpville. Steam engines go through a lot of water. So, when the railroad was being expanded, they came to this small ranching town, drilled a well and set up a watering station. As diesel engines replaces steam, the depot closed and was abandoned.
As I drove in, I stopped in front of the only place still triving, the Baptist Church. They still hold services and have a big enough congregation to remain open.
The only other sign of life, a few bleeting sheep.
Back at the car and ready to move on, I paused. My mother would have used the word, “fortuitous.” I heard a very faint, distant rumble and knew… Yes, after all these years, the Union Pacific Railroad still comes through Pumpville. They just don’t stop.
My next stop was the town of Langtry. It’s original name was Vinnegaroon, named after a local species of scorpion. When squashed, it emits a smell much like vinegar. The name was changed to Langtry, after the English singer Lily Langtry. She never lived here and only visited once. But, Roy Bean was a really big fan. Who’s Roy Bean? A man with an interesting backstory.
In March of 1862, the Confederate Army had invaded New Mexico. During the Battle of Glorieta Pass, theyeir supply wagons were destroyed and they were forced to retreat to San Antonio, Texas. Roy Bean “borrowed” some money from his brothers safe and joined them. For the rest of the war, he worked as a blockade runner, transferring Texas cotton to British ships off shore.
After the war, he tried his hand at selling timber from a neighbor’s land. He tried being a butcher, rustling and selling unbranded cattle. He even tried being s dairy farmer until he was caught watering down the milk. He would eventually do a year in jail for what we would consider today to be domestic violence.
After getting out of jail, Bean opened a saloon catering to the railroad workers. The neighboring businesses would eventually buy him out on the condition he leave San Antonio and not return.
He took the money and bought supplies. Once again catering to the railroad workers, he opened a tent saloon outside current day Langtry. Being two hundred miles from the nearest courthouse, Bean figured he was far enough from the law to be hassled. His tent saloon became a tent city and he named it Vinnegaroon.
As the population of Pecos County grew, the Texas Ranger requested a local law jurisdiction be established. The first Justice of the Peace, Roy Bean. He turned his saloon into a temporary courtroom. As you might expect, some of his rulings were unique. He once fined a dead man $40. He had fallen off a railroad bridge to his death. In his pockets was a pistol and the $40. He was posthumously found guilty of carrying a concealed weapon. The $40 fine covered his burial.
Another of Roy Bean’s stunts involved the 1896 world boxing championship fight between Peter Mahar and Bob Fitzsimmons that lasted a minute and a half. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and the neighboring Mexican state had all banned the fight and the gambling that was sure to accompany it. So, to get around the bans, he built a walkway out to a sandbar in the middle of the Pecos River, out of everyone’s jurisdiction and held the fight there.
Down the street from the Roy Bean Museum, are a couple of old buildings from days passed...
On the way out of town, I saw some more curious buildings. My first thought was perhaps an old motel. I stopped the car and walked out to investigate. That’s where I was painfully reminded of that old Rexas adage, Everything’s Bigger in Texas. Case in point, this thorn.
When I stepped on it, it went through my boot and into my foot. You can imagine my surprise. As for the buildings, the first said it was part of the sheriff’s department. The mystery deepens.
I left the mystery behind and continued to drive east. When I crossed the Pecos River, I had to double back to a couple of overlooks. I couldn’t pass up a bridge like this one.
My goal for the next day was to be Seminole Canyon State Park. I passed it late in the afternoon and drove another coupe of miles to the town of Comstock, named after railroad dispatcher John Comstock. I checked in at the Comstock Motel and had a nice chat with the owner. He put me in Room #1, right next to the lobby. Bonus for stronger wifi. The room not only looked clean, it smelled clean. Not that chemical clean, just clean.
I inquired about food. The Mexican place was closed. There was a small convenience store across the street where I did grab a few protein bars and orange juice for the morning. There’s also J&P’s Barbecue, aka Beer Hell. After a week of enjoying some of the better South Texas craft beers, the one place in town has one thing on draft, Keystone Light. According to the website Beer Advocate, it's the Fifth worst domestic beer available. Drafts are a dollar. So, I had a Dos Equis and left. There were four customers in the place.
Sunset from the motel parking lot…
And over downtown Comstock.
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