HIGHWAY 90

SANDERSON TO DEL RIO - 120 miles

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers on the following highways and in both directions:

1. Del Rio to El Paso. 2. Sonora to El Paso. 3. Midland to El Paso. 4. Alpine yo the Big Bend Park. 5. Marfa to the Big Bend Park. Always available at the Gulf Service Stations.

Mileage

0.0 Start at the Sanderson Newell-Gulf Service Station on the right at the west side of town. The dealer will be glad to answer your questions about the Sanderson area.

Write your speedometer mileage down here. Add it to the figures on this log to get your speedometer reading at any point. Allow some mileage variation. Speedometers vary and tire tread wear and inflation also make a difference.

SANDERSON, El. 2,780 ft., Pop. 2,500. A railroad founded town, but it grew larger than many since it was a division point with roundhouse where steam engines and crews were changed. Freight crews still change here and roadbed repair crews live here. North of Sanderson about 45 miles there are some of the largest natural gas fields in the world. Gas is piped to the west coast.

On Friday, June 11, 1965, at 7 in the morning a flash flood swept through Sanderson, destroying most of the homes at the east side of town. There were 26 dead, some of them still missing. A very tragic disaster, but one of which will be prevented in the future by flood control structures planned upstream.

3.7 ROADSIDE PARK. If your car radio is dead along here, think nothing of it. You are probably farther from a broadcast station then you’ve been before. Your best bets are Del Rio 1230, Ft. Stockton 860, and Midland 550.

5.9 You are now leaving Sanderson Canyon. You have been coming down this canyon for 18 miles.

19.1 On your right is the old Dryden Airfield. After World War I the Army Air Corps established fields each 100 miles or so across this rugged country along the border to accommodate the short-range planes then used. They used them for training and to patrol the border. It was abandoned as a field in 1942.

20.6 You are now in Dryden. El. 2,104 ft.,Pop. 100. Note that the little towns are about 20 to 30 miles apart. They grew up around water supplies (usually wells) developed by the railroads since the old steam engines had to take on water about that often.

25.0 Through West Texas each 10 miles (from the next town) you’ll see a black and white sign on the right, giving the mileage. The Texas Highway Department realizes that this is a huge state, and they feel that people need encouragement once in a while so they’ll know they’re making some progress.

30.9 ROADSIDE PARK. You’ll notice that this is rather dry country. Rainfall in this area is about 12” a year. It is 18” at Del Rio and from there eastward the rainfall increases quite uniformly to 56” along the Louisiana border. In fact, for each 11 miles east from Del Rio, rainfall increases pretty close to one inch. That’s one reason Texas has almost every sort of vegetation from the true desert type near El Paso, to the huge forests of East Texas. In the area you’re crossing, 60% of the rain falls June through September. Evaporation from an open water surface, such as a stock tank, is 96” a year or eight times the rainfall.

43.0 You are about to cross Lozier Canyon. It empties into the Rio Grande about 3-1/2 miles top your right. Since “Rio” means river, you should never say Rio Grande River. It’s redundant!

49.0 ROADSIDE PARK. The mountains you see to the south in the distance are the Consuelo Range in Old Mexico. They are the east end of the Sierra Madre Oriental.

60.0 LANGTRY. El. 1,308 ft., Pop. about 100. Loop25 to your right goes through old Langtry. Less than a mile out of your way and something YOU MUST NOT MISS.

On this Loop is the new JUDGE ROY BEAN TRAVEL CENTER built, staffed and operated by the Texas Highway Dept. Travel and Information Division. It’s a museum with dioramas described on tape recordings. It’s a gorgeous garden. It’s a resting spot with a park. Lots of informative folders, attractive girls who know everything there is to know about the area. Best of all you’ll see in the courtyard at its original location the actual Judge Roy Bean Saloon. All free! As you come up to the Travel Center, the cliffs to the south are in old Mexico since Langtry is on the bank of the Rio Grande. The old Railroad route was down the main street.

If you don’t know about the Judge, you don’t know about “Law West of the Pecos.” On February 21, 1896, Judge Roy Bean stage the World’s Heavyweight Championship prizefight here, between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher. Texas Rangers had been sent in to stop the fight, so it was held on a sand bank on the Mexican side. It was pronounce a fizzle — Fitzsimmons in 2 minutes of the first round — in the days of 20 and 30 round battles to the finish, but it might seem long compared to some today! Add one mile to the log figures if you go through old Langtry.

72.6 ROADSIDE PARK and observation point for the Pecos River High Bridge of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The first rail crossing of the Pecos was by means of a water-level bridge, and the railroad went down to it and back up in tunnels. Present bridge is 321 ft. above the water, highest railroad bridge in Texas.

During World War II this bridge was a potentially serious bottleneck. A company of soldiers with anti-aircraft guns guarded it, train doors were locked during the crossing, and the undercarriage of the trains was searched.

74.7 The transcontinental Sunset Route of what is now the Southern Pacific was built from both the east and the west and the two crews met with the last spike on Jan. 12, 1883 a short distance to your right. It was supposed to be a silver spike but don’t bother, I’ve looked and someone must have beaten me to it!

77.2 The Pecos River Highway Bridge. Excellent view and place for pictures.

You can see the old road going down the canyon walls to your right. The last bridge down there was 60 ft. above water level but a flood took it out just the same. That’s why they built this one up so high.

77.9 Roadside Park observation point across bridge to your right. The highest highway bridge in Texas. 273 ft. down to the water, 1,310 ft. long. Cost of the bridge was $1,500,000.00. It took the state gasoline tax on 75 million gallons of gasoline to pay for it. Ed Buchanan, who played Judge Roy Bean on the TV series, helped dedicate it. The Pecos joins the Rio Grande just below here, and the cliffs on the south are in Old Mexico. The Pecos, before irrigation water impounding upstream, was an impenetrable barrier to the early travelers. Even upstream, where the cliffs aren’t so high, it was 65 to 100 ft. wide, 8 to 10 ft. deep, with a rushing current. Add 1.3 mi. to log if you go to Observation Point Park.

86.0 As you go across this area keep a sharp watch on both sides for mysterious looking narrow cuts in the hills and fills in the valleys. These are on the old original railroad route. Long since abandoned when the railroad was straightened and shortened to the new location.

88.6 COMSTOCK. El. 1,550 ft., Pop. 500. A ranch trading center. The heavy, massive beds of gray rock you see in the road cuts and canyons between here and Del Rio is Cretaceous limestone laid down at the bottom of an ocean over 100 million years ago. It underlies much of Central West Texas and forms the Edwards Plateau.

106.1 The Amistad Lake comes up under this bridge. It used to be Devil’s River, shortest river in Texas, about 75 miles from its headwater springs to this point. It was named by a group of Texas Rangers in 1848 who found this country pretty rugged for traveling. Use your imagination to decide what it was like before road cuts, before bridges! This bridge is one mile long.

108.1 INTERSECTION. The road to your right leads to the new Amistad Dam on the Rio Grande, between Texas and Mexico. Visitors are welcome, there is an observation point and you can drive across to Mexico on the dam.

Amistad means friendship and that’s the key word for the area. Mexican contractors worked from their side and the Americans worked from the Texas side. Finished in 1968 at a cost of 78 million dollars, not counting the power-generating facilities. The U.S. paid 56.2% and Mexico paid 43.8%. Total height 264 ft. over the river bed, length 33,022 ft. - that’s 6-1/4 miles. The reservoir will hold 5,660,000 acre feet of water, largest in or bordering Texas. The Amistad lake will extend 74 miles up the Rio Grande and 25 miles up the Devil’s River.

This is a dam site well worth seeing. If you go to the dam, add the mileage you use to the road log numbers from here on.

108.5 Look for the road on your left to Diablo East Recreation Center. Its a mile to your left on Amistad Lake and well worth the side trip. Amistad Lake is becoming one of the foremost recreation centers in the Southwest.

At the operating pool level the lake surface will be 1,117 feet above sea level with 851 shoreline miles of which 547 will be in the U. S. During flood storage the lake will be larger. The National Park Service which is in charge has plans for nine recreation areas. Two are operating now. Lots of boats from the smallest up to large houseboats operate out of Diablo East.

The lake has been stocked and there are large-mouth bass, white bass, black bass, channel catfish and yellow catfish up to 60 pounds. There are over 300 known Indian culture sites in the area, many accessable by boat.

115.8 Road Y. Take the right for Del Rio.

116.1 ROADSIDE PARK.

119.0 DEL RIO CIVIC CENTER on your left. DEL RIO, El. 948 ft., Pop. 26,000, called the Queen City of the Rio Grande. A very interesting city and gateway into Old Mexico. Judge Roy Bean and his son, Sam, are buried on the grounds of the Whitehead Memorial Museum on South Main Street.

CIUDAD ACUNA across the Rio Grande in Mexico is just 2 miles from downtown Del Rio. An old world Mexican city with the plaza, bull ring, fine restaurants, bars, shopping areas. No crossing papers or formalities of any kind except the customs inspection if you stay within 15 miles of the border. You can take tour but if its loaded with luggage it might be easier to take a taxi or bus so you won’t have to open things up when you return.

It’s time for a rest stop and a gasoline fill anyway so why not stop at one of the three fine Gulf Stations right on this street for full information about Del Rio and Ciudad Acuna. While you’re at the station you might tell them what you think about these Newell-Gulf Road Logs. The cooperation of these dealers helped make them possible.

When you return, stop again and get a westbound log. It will take you all the way to El Paso. We hope you have a fine trip and Drive Friendly! - or you might hit one of our customers!

If you have time, comments and suggestions about these logs would be appreciated. Just drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas. Who’s he? He’s the Gulf Jobber for the Texas Trans-Pecos Area who climbed all those mountains to measure the elevations and counted all those populations and wrote these logs.

Copyright W. J. Newell 1971

FREE ROAD LOG - SANDERSON TO DEL RIO - FREE ROAD LOG

THESE UNIQUE ROAD LOGS are available in both directions for three routes across West Texas.

1. Hwy. 80 (I.S. 20 & 10) between Midland-Odessa and El Paso.

2. Hwy. 290 (I.S. 10) between Sonora-Ozona and El Paso.

3. Hwy. 90 between Del Rio and El Paso.

Mileage

0.0 THESE LOGS are available only at Gulf Service Stations for customers. The purpose is to give you interesting information about the country between towns. The Gulf Service Stations across the area have full printed separate information for you about the towns themselves. Ask for it while you have your gasoline tank filled.

ALPINE AT THE SIGNAL LIGHT. While you have your gasoline tank filled at one of the two fine Newell-Gulf Service Stations in Alpine, ask Red Patillo (at the Gulf Servicenter) or Al Vega (at the Sul Ross Gulf station) for free printed information on Alpine and its vicinity. Consider - and ask them about - the side trips to Ft. Davis its National Historic Site (the Old fort), McDonald Observatory, Scenic Loop, and the big Bend National Park.

RECORD YOUR MILEAGE HERE. Add it to the figures given in this log to get your speedometer reading at any point. Allow some mileage variation. Speedometers do vary, and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference.

ALPINE. EL. 4,485 FT., POP. 5,200. The largest town in the largest county in the largest state in the United States IN the United States. First white man to visit was Cabeza de Vaca in 1535. He stopped at what is now Kokernot Springs, just 1 mile north of the Sul Ross Gulf Service Station on State Highway 223.

0.7 SUL ROSS STATE COLLEGE on your left. Named after Sullivan Ross, an early governor of Texas. About 2,000 students in winter, 1,000 in summer. They have a rodeo team here that has been national champion a number of times. A fine school, especially for teacher training.

2.7 GOOD VIEW of the Davis Mountains to the left rear. The sharp pointed one is Mitre Peak, an igneous intrusion 8 mi. north of Alpine. There’s a girl scout camp in a watered canyon near its base.

4.0 THE VERY DARK ROCKS are part of an old volcanic lava flow, note dark soil.

5.0 THE RAILROAD ON YOUR RIGHT is the Southern Pacific main transcontinental line from New Orleans to Los Angeles. It opened up this whole area when it was built in the 1880’s. You’ll never be far from it while you’re on Highway 90.

8.3 FORT STOCKTON Y, keep straight ahead. Roadside Park and historical marker. South of the highway is Bullfrog Mountain. Look closely and you’ll see the head-end antenna installations of the Alpine TV Cable Co.

10.3 ALTUDA MOUNTAIN on your right. El. 6,100 ft. There used to be a silver mine on the side of the mountain.

12.8 YOU ARE ABOUT to go through a pass, El. 4,600 ft., in the Glass Mountains (no glass). They are of Permian age, same age as the formations which produce such tremendous quantities of oil in the Midland-Odessa area. These mountains, and the Santiago chain to the south, are the southernmost extension of the Rocky Mountains.

20.0 YOU HAVE COME over one of the most noted geological unconformities in the world. You are now on the Marathon Uplift, which you will continue on for about 15 miles.

NOW TO GIVE YOU the world’s record, shortest geological history, of the Marathon Uplift area. 530 million years ago there was a north-east-to-south-west trough below the level of the sea in this area. For 250 million years Paleozoic sediments were deposited - 21,000 ft. of them - as the trough sank lower. Heat, pressure, and time changed these sediments into sandstones, quartz-type rocks, shales and limestones.

THESE PALEOZOIC ROCKS were uplifted, squeezed, faulted, tipped on edge, tremendously deformed, during a mountain-building age, and then eroded down into a flat plain. These rocks and these mountains are the same age as the Quachita Mountains of Oklahoma-Arkansas and as the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States, part of the same mountain system. LATER, AFTER THE EROSION, this area subsided again below the sea, and Permian and Cretaceous rocks were laid down horizontally over the cut-off edges of the Paleozoic rocks. In this area the Cretaceous rocks, mostly limestone, were 1,200 ft. thick. Next, the whole area was lifted again and a great dome arched up in the Marathon area - The Marathon Uplift.

THE HORIZONTAL BEDS of rock weathered away from the top of the dome, leaving the Marathon area much as it is today. Later, came the Rocky Mountain-building period just west of here. South and west of Marathon you can actually see the older Appalachian Mountains plunging down under the Rocky Mountains.

EAST OF HERE those horizontal Cretaceous limestones form the tops of the mesas. East of here for about 15 miles you travel across the uncovered edges of the older Paleozoic rocks.

THE DARK-COLORED volcanic lava flow rocks you just came over poured out at an even later date and covered everything below. It is interesting to note that though this is an uplift, geologically speaking, look around and you’ll see that it’s a basin, topographically.

GEOLOGISTS COME from all over the world to see this Marathon Uplift. Seven Texas universities send their geology students out here for summer field trips each year. We didn’t understand all that geology either but it’s nice to know the importance of this area.

25.0 THE MOUNTAINOUS SECTION of the Trans-Pecos is noted for its mule deer (black tail) and hunters come after them from all over the country in the late Fall. They dress out at an average of 130 lbs., but some go over 200 lbs. and many a hunter has temporarily doubted the wisdom of his trip when faced with the problem of getting his kill down out of those mountains.

26.0 NOTE THE SCALLOPED-LOOKING ridges to your right. These stand out all across the Marathon Uplift as they are the hardest rocks. They are composed of lower Paleozoic novaculite, a hard quartz-type of rock, and they are very old - about 425 million years old.

27.4 THAT RUGGED RED MOUNTAIN to your left is Iron Mountain, El. 5150 ft. Farther back these mountains go up close to 6,000 ft.

28.4 THE STEEP-SIDED flat topped mountain directly to your right on the horizon is Santiago Mountain, an igneous intrusion pushed up through all the other rocks, El. 6,521 ft. Believe it or not, a land promoter bought the top and sold it off as town lots to gullible buyers in 1916. It was called Progress City. The longer, flat-topped mountain farther to the west is Elephant Mountain, El., 6,200 ft. Sorry, no progress in Progress City, no elephants on Elephant Mountain.!

30.4 MARATHON and the Big Bend Marathon Gulf Station, El. 4,043. Pop. 800. Juan Salmon can give you all the information about the area. If you look closely as you go through Marathon, you may see Bear Hollis riding his jackass around town.

31.0 ROAD TO THE RIGHT goes to the Big Bend National Park. A day to a week spent in the Big Bend National Park is well worthwhile. A majestic, stupendous area of mountains up to 7,835 ft., painted deserts, and three sheer canyons down to an elevation of 1,850 ft. Ghost towns, a wild, largely unexplored, fantastic region - but with fine accommodations, including motel, camping areas, restaurant, and, of course, Newell-Gulf Service Stations at four locations within the park. Telephone ahead to GR 7-2291 if you want rooms. Fill up with gasoline at the Marathon Gulf station before you leave Highway 90. It’s 70 miles to the next gasoline. Excellent roads all the way. One of our finest National Parks, and the only one in Texas.

31.7 ON YOUR RIGHT is the Fluorospar plant of the Dow Chemical Co. This mineral is mined in Old Mexico, 125 miles south of here, hauled to the plant by truck. It is used in chemical plants, atomic energy installations, and as a flux in smelting aluminum and steel. Up to 30 million pounds come through here each month. The deposit across the Rio Grande is one of the largest in the world.

34.0 IT IS ALONG HERE THAT you cross the Great Comanche War Trail. This trail started from the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers and ran 1,000 miles down through here to Chihuahua, and as far as Durango in Old Mexico. The Comanches came down to the relatively civilized areas of northern Mexico to plunder and steal, terrorizing the whole area. They were most active in the 1840’s, getting away with over 10,000 head of livestock in 1846. The old forts at Ft. Stockton, Ft. Davis and Ft. Pena Colorado (3 mi. south of Marathon) were established to put a stop to this and to protect western-bound wagon trains on the old Overland Trail from the Indians.

IN 1860, Lt.. Wm. H. Echols came through here leading the historic camel expedition, testing the use of camels to replace pack mules in desert areas. The camels did all right, but they were abandoned when the Civil War broke out, and there were tales of wild camels for years.

45.0 LEMON GAP. El. 4,250 ft. You are now leaving the Marathon plain and dipping down into the canyon-mesa country.

45.6 NOTE THE VERTICALLY-BEDDED rock in the road cuts for the next 4 miles. This is that old Paleozoic rock that has been deformed and tipped on edge. You are just about to leave that Marathon Uplift. Note ahead and on each side the horizontally-bedded Cretaceous limestones.

46.0 THE 425 MILLION year old Paleozoic rocks are the rounded brown slopes of the mountains ahead. Immediately above are the horizontally-bedded Cretaceous limestones - only 100 million years old. That line between them is called an unconformity.

49.0 YOU ARE NOW PASSING over that unconformity.

50.0 NOTE THE MESAS on each side. These flat-topped mountains extend many miles to the north. Mesas (means table in Spanish) are formed when rock beds are horizontal and hard beds are underlain by softer ones. The soft rocks weather away, but in some places the hard rock protects the layers underneath, leaving a mesa. Note the steep slopes.

50.5 ROADSIDE PARK, You are going down Sanderson Canyon. You travel down it for about 18 miles.

53.4 THAT ODD-LOOKING little concrete block building on your left is a telephone amplifier station.

55.0 AHEAD ON THE RIGHT is the Steve Stumberg ranch headquarters. Although ranching is the main occupation west of the Pecos you don’t see many ranch headquarters since most are tucked away in some of the beautiful mountain canyons. Though the Stumberg ranch is a sheep ranch, most of them are cattle ranches. Size of the ranches runs from 12,000 acres up to 120,000 acres. It takes 20 to 60 acres for each cow and 3 to 9 acres for each sheep so you can see why the ranches are large. Favored breeds are Rambouillet sheep and Hereford cattle.

60.8 NOTE THE SHARP COLOR variation lines on the mountain to your right. These are fence lines and the color difference is caused by the fact that one pasture has more livestock in it than the other.

67.4 LONGFELLOW. A railroad switch. The railroad president allowed his daughter to name many locations when the railroad was built, and most of them were named after writers and poets.

73.7 ROADSIDE PARK. You are still traveling down Sanderson Canyon. You’ll be taking pictures on your trip. Unfortunately, mid-day pictures in the intense light seem to flatten out the rugged landscape. Best pictures are taken early and late in the day so shadows give relief and texture.

82.5 QUARRY on your right is in Cretaceous (Edwards) limestone. Rock was used mostly for railroad road bed.

SANDERSON GULF STATION, Sanderson. El. 2,780. Pop. 2,500. A ranching and railroad town. The Sanderson Newell-Gulf Station is on your right on the west side of town. Sam Marquez can give you full information about it. It’s time for a rest stop and for a gasoline fill-up, since it’s 120 miles on to Del Rio and this is no country to let your tank run low.

Sam will be glad to give you another of these Newell-Gulf Road Logs to take you on into Del Rio. You’ll see canyons and Mexican mountains. The highest Highway bridge and the highest railroad bridge, the original Judge Roy Bean salon-courthouse, the great Amistad Dam.

You’ll enjoy your trip more when you know what you are seeing. Get Newell-Gulf Road Log No. 1 E from Sam Marquez at the Sanderson Gulf Station. It’s free to customers. Drive carefully, you might hit one of our customers!

THIS TYPE OF ROAD LOG is a new idea and we’d like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas, 79830? Your frank opinion would be appreciated. He’d also like to know how you found out about these logs. We like to put these logs out but we have quite a problem letting you travelers know they’re available. We’d appreciate it if you’d help spread the word that they can be picked up at any Gulf Service Station in the area on the highways listed: Hwy. 80 (I.S. 10) between El Paso and Midland; Hwy. 290 between El Paso and Sonora; Hwy. 90 between El Paso and Del Rio. All three routes are available eastbound and westbound. Thanks.

GET YOUR NEXT FREE

ROAD LOG AT

THE SANDERSON GULF STATION.

Copyright © W.J. Newell 1967

Highway 90

Van Horn to Marfa 74 Miles, and to alpine, 100 Miles

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at all Gulf Service Stations on three routes across West Texas.

1. Hwy. 80 (I.S. 10 & 20) between Midland-Odessa and El Paso.

2. Hwy. 290 (I.S. 10) between Sonora-Ozona and El Paso.

3. Hwy. 90 between Del Rio and El Paso.

4. Hwy. 90 to the Big Bend Park.

The purpose of these logs is to give you interesting information about the country between towns. The Gulf Service Stations across the area have full printed separate information for you about the towns themselves.Ask for the information about Van Horn while you get your gasoline tank filled at one of the fine Gulf Stations. There’s the Holiday Gulf Station, the Oilwell Gulf Station and Mitchell’s Gulf Station.

Van Horn at the caution signal light. Record your mileage in the margin and add it to the log figures to get your speedometer reading at any point. Allow some mileage variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference also.

Mileage

0.0 Turn directly south (to your right) at the caution signal light, Capitan Hotel corner. Van Horn, El. 4,050 ft. Pop. 2,100. is the county seat of Culberson County and a service town for the traveler.

7.6 Old Van Horn Wells was up the slope to your right on the near side of the mountain spur that comes down to the highway. Van Horn Wells was a major stage stop and watering place on the old San Antonio-San Diego Overland Trail of Gold Rush Days. You cross the old Overland Trail here.

10.3 You are now in the Van Horn-Lobo irrigation area. About 19,000 acres are cultivated with water from wells, 600 ft. deep. They produce up to 1,000 gallons per minute. The discovery of well water for irrigation here in the early 1950’s changed land worth less than $5.00 per acre into land worth hundreds of dollars per acre, almost overnight. Crops are cotton, grain, sorghum, onions, beans, and alfalfa.

16.3 Lobo. The old auto road was down in the Chispa Plains Flat to your left. In the days before pavement this was impassable after a rain, the whole place filling up with water. The mountains on your right are now the Van Horn Mountains. Elevations up to 5808 ft.

19.6 Note Needle Peak on your right. El. 4,930 ft.

21.6 The road to your right follows an old railroad bed built in the 1890’s to the San Carlos coal mine. There was too much ash in the coal, so it didn’t work out. The road goes through the old railroad tunnel into a fantastically rugged wild canyon country along the Rio Grande, unpaved after the first mile or two.

22.2 Roadside Park. From here on almost to Marathon, look for pronghorn antelope. Herds of 5 to 25 are often seen quite close to the road. They look like small deer, but a brighter color, white rump patch, and throat streaks, light brown back and legs. There’s a restricted hunting season (permits only) in the Fall, but they’re remarkably tame the rest of the year.

23.2 The mountain range on your right is the Vieja Mountains. These are largely old volcanic lava flows. On the far side is a steep scarp dropping off to the Rio Grande. The area beyond these mountains is one of the roughest and almost unexplored areas left in the country. It was a bandit hideout during the border troubles of 1910 to 1920.

32.0 Along here a good view of the highest part of the Davis Mountains ahead to your left. Named (as was Ft. Davis) for Jefferson Davis when he was U. S. Secretary of War before the Civil War. This was an area of intense volcanic activity. The darker rock layers are old volcanic lava flows. The highest point you see is Mt. Livermore, El. 8,382 ft. East of this mountain there is no higher point on the North American Continent. You’ll be able to recognize Sawtooth Mountain by its distinctive shape. El. 7,748 ft. These mountains are in Jeff Davis County, and make it the highest county in Texas. Average elevation is around 5,000 ft. and most of it is over a mile high.

The Davis Mountains cover an area about 40 by 50 miles and are composed mostly of volcanic rocks, some limestone, deformed by broad folds. Higher slopes are wooded with pine, oak and black cherry. A very rough country, it contains white and black tail deer, bear, mountain lion, antelope, wolves and coyotes. There are deep canyons and springs. Mostly a cattle ranching country, but with a few apple orchards. This was the last home of the Mescalero Apaches, finally driven out by the soldiers from Ft. Davis, now a National Historic Site, and in the process of being restored.

The Overland Trail went along the south edge of the mountains. From a plane it’s possible to follow the exact route of the trail through most of this country. Wagon ruts can be seen in many places, and in others the ruts have grown into arroyos, cutting across the normal drainage pattern down from the mountains.

35.3 Along here you may notice how barren the ground is inside the fence to your right, in contrast to that farther away. This is caused by the disruption of the natural sheet drainage by the railroad and the highway. The ground is simply water starved.

37.8 VALENTINE, El. 4,424 ft. Pop. 420. This used to be a big division point on the railroad. Freight crews still change here. If you’re having trouble with your car radio along here, think nothing of it. You’re just too far from broadcast stations.

52.0 Roadside Park to your left.

52.1 To your right, near the clump of trees in the valley, you can see where Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor made many of the scenes of “Giant”. It’s the false front of the huge ranch house in the movie. A lot of the show was filmed in the area with locals for extras. It was quite a financial transfusion for Marfa at the time.

53.0 You are driving over what is known geologically as the Marfa Basin. No oil or gas production yet, but it has good possibilities and wildcat wells are drilled from time to time.

55.0 You are in the great Highland Hereford cattle ranching country. The grass may look pretty thin to you, but it’s mostly grama grass and so nourishing that the cattle do much better on it than they do on the water-filled grass down near the coast. Most of the calves are shipped in the fall to cattle feeder areas in the mid-west and other grain-raising regions. While you’re thinking about ranching, it might be a good time to give some consideration to the invention that made ranching, as we know it in the west, possible - the windmill. The distance cattle will travel between grass and water is very limited. Before drilled wells and windmills, only small parts of these ranches could be used for raising cattle. Now windmills and hundreds of miles of water lines make all the country useful.

60.6 Twin Mountains ahead to the left.

66.3 More of the Davis Mountains are coming up over the horizon. Cathedral Mountain is just left of the road ahead. Elephant Mountain to right of road ahead.

67.8 The isolated Mountain mass far to your right is the Chinati Mountain range. Chinati Peak, elevation is 7,730 ft. Beyond them the country slopes steeply down to the Rio Grande. El. 2,550 ft.

69.3 Roadside Park. The Marfa TV Cable tower is ahead.

73.6 MARFA, El. 4,690, Pop. 3,000.County seat of Presidio County and ranch supply center. Webb Bros. Newell-Gulf Service Station is at the signal light in the center of town. They can give you full printed information about the Marfa Area.

We suggest a side trip to Old Mexico at Ojinaga (only 60 miles to see an old-world,unspoiled, true Mexican town), also the Davis Mountain scenic loop and the National Historical Site at the old Fort, best preserved of all Indian Forts. It was the site of many bloody battles. The Webb Bros. can give you Newell-Gulf Log No. 2E which joins this one to the east, or you can pick it up at one of the Newell-Gulf Stations in Alpine.

Consider a side trip to Shafter, old silver-mining ghost town, only 40 miles south. They took out over $18,000,000.00 of silver and gold in the 50 years it operated. Presidio and Ojinaga are located where the Rio Concho of Mexico joins the Rio Grande. You’ve heard of Presidio, since it often has the highest temperature in the U. S. in summer, but no one has ever had heat stroke there. Presidio claims to be the oldest town in America, since there has been a settlement there for 10,000 years.

For a real treat, see Shafter, Presidio, Ojinaga, leave your car in Presidio and take the trip over the Chihuahua al Pacifico railroad to the west coast of Mexico and back. This is the new famous mountain trip over the northern Mexico wilderness. It’s remarkably inexpensive and takes only a few days. See the Big Bend Travel Service in Marfa; they’ll give you a package deal and make all arrangements. This is one of the travel treats of the world.

81.9 On your right, the Marfa-Alpine Airport. It was an advanced twin-engine training base in World War II. Along about here you can pick up Radio Station KVLF, Alpine at 1240 on your dial. This is the only broadcast station in this area between El Paso and Del Rio, 425 miles.

82.0 On a good day look to your left for a rounded-top mountain on the horizon with a silver spot on top. This is the famous McDonald Observatory. Third largest telescope in the world is located here. It is owned by the University of Texas. On Mt. Locke, El. 6,791 ft. Ask at the Gulf station in Alpine or Marfa about visiting it and the scenic loop. Harvard University has a Radio Astronomy Observatory near Mt. Locke and two additional observatories are under construction. They like this area since it is relatively free from radio and TV interference.

86.4 You are starting over Paisano Pass. The Southern Pacific Railroad crosses just to your left at El. 5,078 ft. Highest point on the transcontinental rail line between the Gulf and the Pacific. Juan de Mendoza camped here in 1684. Later an important point on the Chihuahua trail. The railroad you came over was the Santa Fe, going down to Presidio where it joins the Chihuahua al Pacifico. Believe it or not, this is the shortest rail route from Kansas City to Pacific tidewater. The Santa Fe runs over the S. P. tracks from here to Alpine and then cuts north to San Angelo and Sweetwater.

88.6 On your right is Paisano Baptist Encampment, a descendant of the old-time cowboy camp meetings. Each summer several thousand people come from all over the U. S. for a revival meeting week.

90.0 If you can possibly spare the time, a day to a week spent in the Big Bend National Park south of Alpine is well worthwhile. A majestic, stupendous area of mountains up to 7,835 ft., painted deserts, and three sheer canyons down to an elevation of 1,850 ft. Ghost towns, a wild, largely unexplored, fantastic region - but with fine accommodations, including motel, camping areas, restaurant, and, of course, Newell-Gulf Service stations at four locations within the park. Telephone ahead to GR 7-2291 if you want rooms. Fill up with gasoline in Alpine before you leave Highway 90. It’s 80 miles to the next gasoline. Fine roads all the way. Big Bend is one of our finest National Parks and the only one in Texas.

94.1 Roadside Park. Ahead is Twin Sisters Mountain, El. 6,100 ft.

96.7 Coming out into Alpine Valley. Considered the most beautiful mountain setting for any Texas town. It snows around here each winter, but usually only a few inches, and it’s gone the same day. The nights in Alpine are usually very cool, even in summer.

100.0 Alpine, El. 4,485 ft. Pop. 5,200. The largest town in the largest county in the United states IN the United States. Two fine Newell-Gulf Service Stations here which have full printed information on the area ready for you. If you didn’t stop in Marfa, it’s been 100 miles from Van Horn. Time for a rest stop and to fill up with gasoline since it’s 85 miles on to Sanderson. Red Patillo at the Gulf Servicenter on your right in the center of town and Al Vega at the Sul Ross Gulf Station on your left at the Sul Ross College campus can tell you about the spot here visited by Cebeza de Vaca in 1535. They have full information about the trip to the Big Bend National Park, Ft. Davis and the Scenic Loop. Alpine is a fine area for Rock Hounds. Ask at a Gulf Station. They have available for you the next log in this series, No. 2E, which will take you on to Sanderson. With this log, you will see one of the most important geological locations in the world. You’ll see where the Comanche-Chihuahua Trail crosses the highway; you’ll learn about Progress City - laid out on top of an inaccessible mountain - and you’ll learn about the disastrous Sanderson Flood of 1965. Be sure to pick up Newell-Gulf Road Log No. 2E at one of the Gulf Service Stations. Enjoy your Trip. Know what You see.

This type of road log is a new idea and we’d sort of like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas, 79830? Your frank opinion would be appreciated. He’d also like to know how you found out about these logs. We like to put these logs out, but we have a bit of a problem letting you travelers know that they’re available. We’d appreciate it if you’d help spread the word that these logs can be picked up at any Gulf Service Station in the area on the highways listed; Hwy. 80 between El Paso and Midland; Hwy. 290 between El Paso and Sonora; Hwy. 90 between El Paso and Del Rio. All are available eastbound and westbound. Copyright © W.J. Newell 1967

GET YOUR NEXT FREE ROAD LOG AT ANY GULF STATION IN ALPINE OR MARFA

EL PASO TO VAN HORN 120 MILES

These unique road logs are available free to customers on the following highways and in both directions:

1. Del Rio to El Paso. 2. Sonora to El Paso. 3. Midland to El Paso. 4. Alpine to the Big Bend Park. 5. Marfa to the Big Bend Park. Always available the Gulf Service Stations.

We had to start this log somewhere, so we started at the Civic Center Gulf Station in downtown El Paso. The purpose of these logs is to give you interesting information about the country between towns. Obviously, we don’t have the space to give you full information about El Paso — a fascinating city. The Gulf Service Stations in El Paso, however, have ready for you full printed information about the city and the surrounding area. It’s free to customers. Stop at one of them and get this information as you get your tank filled.

Mileage

0.0 Civic Center, Holiday Inn and Gulf Station. El Paso and Wyoming Sts. Head east on Wyoming.

0.2 Take ramp down on to IH 10.

3.5 Raynolds Blvd. Exit and Gulf Station. Easy Exit and reentry to the interstate.

8.0 Hunter St. Exit and Gulf Station coming up on right. If your tank isn’t full, better fill it up now. Lots of empty country with few accommodations ahead. A nice shopping center next to this station for your other needs.

NOTE: If you joined us from one of the motels on this side of town, check your mileage on the speedometer at this Gulf Station, deduct 8.0 miles from it and record it in the margin. This will get you in phase with the mileage from where this Log started. From here on, add the log figures to the figure you wrote down in the margin to get your speedometer reading at any point. Remember, speedometers do vary somewhat and depend on tire tread wear and inflation, so allow for some variation.

12.8 Ysleta interchange exit. We recommend this, the oldest town in Texas — Population 5,000. Only 2-1/2 miles to the fascinating old mission. In 1680, the Indians in New Mexico rebelled against their Spanish masters and drove them south to the Presidio (military Post) at El Paso del Norte (no Juarez). Some of them from Ysleta and Soccoro, New Mexico, founded Ysleta del Sur and Soccoro del Sur (south). Later the course of the river changed, leaving these settlements on the east bank. San Elizario was founded shortly after the others. Some of the mission buildings around which these settlements clustered, are still standing. You can (and should) see them today. Four of the seven acres at the Mission de Corpus Christi de las Isleta Sur (Ysleta) have been in constant cultivation since 1682. Each year on July 16th, the descendants of the Tigua Indians dress in weird costumes and perform the pagan rites of their ancestors.

13.5 Those green signs at the edge of the highway shoulders are mileage markers, recording the distance from the New Mexico state line via Interstate Highway 10.

29.8 Fabens Interchange. El. 3,621 ft. Population 3,134. A farm supply town. Jim Yearwood at the Gulf Station on east Hwy. 80 knows all about this area and will be glad to give you information.

31.0 Rest Area. (Two of them, one on each side). The road along here runs through a true desert area, with less than 10 inches of rain a year. Quite a contrast to the irrigated Rio Grande Valley on your right. Finlay Mountains are to your left; the mountains to your right are in Old Mexico. Note the complex, folded stratas of rock.

The Rio Grande is a remarkable river. Over 2,100 miles in length, it is the fourth longest river in North America, exceeded in length only by the Mississippi-Missouri, the McKenzie-Peace, and the Yukon. It rises in southern Colorado on the continental divide at an elevation of 12,000 ft. For 1,300 miles it is the boundary between the United States and Mexico, the longest boudary river in the Western Hemisphere and, with one possible exception, the longest in the world. At one point or another in its course, it is every kind of river — snowfed mountain stream, desert stream, canyon enclosed torrent, meandering coastal river. Very few of the world’s rivers irrigate as much country. From a time before recorded history it has been the determining factor in the growth of civilization, bringing water to areas of need. Its location determined the location of Indian camps, of transcontinental travel, of the earliest (and the present) white settlements.

68.0 The bridge marks the bottom of a long hill — 15 miles long — which you will climb. You go up from 3,500 ft. el. to 4,700 ft. Before the construction of the new road, this was one of the best radiator boilers in Texas for those headed east. Heavy trucks still make quite a grind of it.

68.3 Th road, No. F M 34, to your right, goes down the river. About 5-1/2 miles will take you to the site of old Ft. Quitman, established in 1858, abandoned in 1877. This was an important way-station on the Overland Trail during the gold rush. It was also a headquarters for fighting Indians and outlaws. It was south of here that the Mexican army exterminated Victorio and his band of 180 Indian braves in the last Indian battle. Sheet erosion has removed al traces of the old fort; it’s very difficult even to locate its site.

72.0 The Quitman Mountains are on your right. The abandoned Bonanza Alice Ray mine in these mountains once produced silver, lead, and zinc.

74.0 Note on the right side of the highway how the ground has been dragged near the fence. Looks like a fire break, but it isn’t. This is a w______ trap. Aliens in this country illegally are called “w_______,” and the Border Patrol inspects these smoothed-over areas for footprints.

77.4 Sierra Blanca (white mountain) is the light-colored one ahead of you. El. 6,894 ft. It is a volcanic intrusive. That is, the molten rock came up from far below into other rocks, which have since weathered away, leaving this harder rock standing above the area. It is composed of micro-granite, hard and fine-grained. On account of its distinctive color, this mountain was an important landmark for early-day travelers.

78.8 Roadside Park.

83.3 El. 4,700 ft. You are now at the top of that long hill.

86.3 Sierra Blanca (the town, that is). Exit to the right. El. 4,500 ft. Pop. 850. County Seat of Hudspeth County, and ranch supply center. Take this exit for the Sierra Blanca-Newell Gulf Station. They have an overnight trailer park.

88.3 The overpass is over the Southern Pacific, which goes east from here to San Antonio and New Orleans. Immediately to your left is the Texas and Pacific which goes to Ft. Worth and Dallas. These railroads join at Sierra Blanca and use the same rails (owned by the S. P.) to El Paso. If you follow these logs on Hwy. 90, you will never be more than a few miles from the S. P.

94.0 The Eagle Mountains are ahead of you to the right.

Most of the country north of here is a bolson; that is, it has interior drainage with no outlets. This forms salt deposits in shallow lakes 30 miles north of here. The Great Salt War was fought over this salt.

96.1 The scars on the mountains to your left are talc mines. You’ll see several in the next 15 miles. Yes, it’s what it sounds like. Used as a base for talcum powder, but most of it is used as a filler in paints and in making ceramic tile.

99.0 The first of several talc-loading spurs on the railroad. Also a Roadside Park on your left. It’s across the west bound lane, but there’s a cross-over about a half mile ahead.

The Eagle Mountains are 8 miles to your right. Eagle Peak, El. 7,000 ft. They are mostly volcanic lava flows. Ruins of an old stagecoach station are located at Eagle Spring on the north slope.

From here on you are in the true WEST OF THE PECOS of Texas — the last frontier, an arid country of monstrous canyons, mountains, and deserts. Rich in wild and woolly history. A country practically unknown to the world until the opening of the railroad in 1882. History before that time centered on the great north-to-south Chihuahua-Comanche Trail, and on the east-to-west Overland Trail of the gold rush and the pioneers.

The Trans-Pecos, due to its remote location, rugged topography, and inaccessibility, was the place of the last stand of the Apaches. The Comanches sustained themselves by making raids from their sanctuary in north Texas and this rugged Trans-Pecos, down into relatively civilized Mexico, around Chihuahua. In 1846, it was estimated that they drove off 10,000 head of livestock. These marauding Indians were the reason for the establishment of the many forts by the United States after the Mexican War. The forts were located at the springs, not only for a water supply, but to deprive the Indians of water in this arid country. It was not until after the 1880’s that these forts could be closed.

109.8 Allamore to the left on the Texas and Pacific, Hot Wells to your right, on the Southern Pacific. On your left is a talc-grinding plant. The mineral is mined in rock chunks, graded by color, and then ground and shipped in paper bags.

111.7 The Gifford Hill rock quarry is on your left. It has been in operation for 40 years, and it appears to have plenty of material left! Their crushed rock is used on roads all over West Texas. It is the reddish brown gravel you see at the side of the pavement. You are starting into the Carrizo Mountains. The pass is at 4,600 ft. elevation.

112.0 Note the dark, shiny, slick-looking rock in the road cuts. This is Pre-Cambrian Schist. These rocks, probably 19,000 ft. thick, are steeply folded and tilted, and about as old a rock as you will ever see — about 800 million to 1,000 million years old.

In 1880, the last Indian campaigns took place around this area. Best known was the hit and run battle at Rattlesnake Springs. It took General Grierson, Commander at Ft. Davis, and his 2,000 men, and General Travinio of Mexico and his 2,000 men, to dispose of Indian Chief Victorio and his 180 braves. Grierson finally drove Victorio into Mexico by occupying all the watering places, and Col. Terrazas with a troop of soldiers and Indian scouts ambushed the Indians in the basin of Tres Castillos, northern Chihuahua, on October 14, 1880. They killed Victorio and practically all of his men.

116.0 Here you leave the Mountain Time Zone and enter the Central time Zone. To avoid confusion up the road, set your watches FORWARD one hour. They tell me it has something to do with the earth’s rotation. No wonder those astronauts are so busy. They have to change their watches 24 times in each 90 minutes!

120.0 Van Horn. El. 4,050 ft. Pop. 2,100. From the way this town is strung along the highway you can see that it is a service station, restaurant, motel center fir travelers. It is also a ranch supply center and the county seat of Culberson County.

Since you’ve come about 120 miles from El Paso it’s time for a rest stop, gasoline fill and a new Road Log. Three fine Gulf Stations in Van Horn to serve you and give you your log. First on your right is the Holiday Gulf Station, next on the right is the Oilwell Gulf Station. Mitchell’s Gulf Station is on the east side of town on Hwy. 80.

For Pecos and IH 20 get Log No. 5E and learn about the newest great geological basin for oil development and the tremendous Pecos irrigation area, the ranches, the geography.

For Ft. Stockton and Hwy. 290 - IH 10 - get Log No. 7E and learn about the Davis Mountains, the last Indian battles, the eight old historic trails you will cross or follow,the oil fields.

For Marfa-Alpine on Hwy. 90 get Log No. 4E and see the route of Gold Rush days. See where Cabeza de Vaca camped in 1535. Learn about one of the most notable geological locations in the world, a great dam and lake. On all three routes you’ll enjoy your trip more because you’ll know what you’re seeing, with a Newell-Gulf Log.

Drive carefully, you might hit one of our customers. A good trip to you!

This type of road log is a new idea and we’d like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas, 79830? Your frank opinion would be appreciated. Copywright W. J. Newell 1971

GET NEXT FREE ROAD LOG AT A GULF STATION IN VAN HORN

VAN HORN TO PECOS 88 MILES VIA IH10 and IH20

ENJOY YOUR TRIP - KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SEEING

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at Gulf stations west of the Pecos.

0.0 VAN HORN. While you get your tank filled at one of the fine Gulf Stations here, ask for information on Van Horn. They have full printed information for you.

Record your speedometer mileage at the caution signal light, intersection of Hwys. 90 and 80. Add it to the log figures to get your mileage at any point. Allow some variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference.

0.2 MITCHELL’S Gulf Service Station on left.

1.5 THE BAYLOR MOUNTAINS are on your left. Highest point 5525 ft., Delaware Mountains are in the distance. The valley leads north 45 miles to a 35-mile long string of sometime wet, sometime dry, salt lakes. You are in the farthest south and east part of the Basin and Range Province. The mountains are the upthrust blocks and the valleys are the down faulted areas. Drainage in this basin heads up near the Chinati Mountains 110 miles south near Marfa, flows north through here. Since there is no outlet from the basin, the water evaporates in the lakes, leaving the salt.

3.0 WYLIE MOUNTAINS on the right. Highest point 5332 ft., just over a mile.

4.4 ROADSIDE PARK on right. Railroad on your left is the Texas and Pacific, a part of the Missouri Pacific system.

6.0 PLANT ahead on left crushes barite, a heavy mineral used in oilwell drilling mud. In drilling, heavy mud is forced down the center of the hollow drill stem to cool and lubricate the bit and to seal the walls of the hole as it comes back up outside the drill stem.

6.5 WILD HORSE farming area on the left. There are about 60 irrigation wells about 600 ft. deep producing 1,000 to 2,000 gallons per minute. 12,000 acres in the area and 5,000 of it in one farm.

8.0 Straight out to the left behind the easternmost edge of the Baylor Mts., and behind the Delaware Mts., you can see the Guadalupe Mountain range which just comes into Texas from New Mexico. Guadalupe Mtn. on the left is the highest point in Texas, El. 8,751 ft. El Capitan with the steep bluff to the right looks higher, but it is “only” 8,078 ft. These mountains are 60 miles from you.

15.5 SANDHILL AREA. Note how the vegetation has held the sand in place, creating hummocks when surrounding sand blew away.

17.0 APACHE MOUNTAINS on left. Highest point 5,696 ft.

18.8 THE CITY OF PLATEAU (pronounced plat-two locally). In 1909-10 land promoters sold thousands of town lots in the East and some descendants are still paying taxes on them.

19.8 BLACK PEAK on right. El. 4,779 ft.

27.5 GOMEZ PEAK, El. 6,398 ft. ahead on skyline to right. This is northwest corner of the Davis Mountains, mostly lava flows.

27.7 The picket fences to the left across crests of hills are snow fences.

36.9 KENT. El. 4,200. Pop. 30. That peculiar-looking structure on top of the steep hill on the right used to be a water tank. Ask locally and they’ll tell you it’s a watch tower. (Used to watch for customers coming down the highway.)

37.1 INTERSECTION Hwys. 80 and 118. Ft. Davis 52 miles on 118. Road goes through the famous X Ranch owned by the Reynolds Cattle Co. They have a herd of buffalo which can often be seen from the road.

39.1 Now you can see the reclining Apache Brave’s profile at the crest of Gomez Peak, the highest one ahead of you. He is lying on his back looking at the sky, head to left, hands on chest, knees elevated to the right. Definitely a brave! An old legend says that if he ever rises up, the Indians will take over this country. I say that if those rocky mountains ever rise up, the Indians can have it!

44.5 You’re going through a pass in the Guadalupe-Delaware-Davis north-south mountain chain, a southern extension and farthest east part of the Rocky Mountains. You’ve also come from the Basin-Range Province to the Great Plains Province, a profound change in geology and geography.

44.9 ROADSIDE PARK.

47.0 ROAD JUNCTION. Take Hwy. IH 20 for Pecos. Elevation here 4,000 ft.

56.3 On the right and in the distance is the north front of the Davis Mountains. Highest part is on the south side beyond view from here. Mt. Livermore, El. 8,382 ft. East of it there is no higher point on the North American continent. The Davis Mountains cover an area about 40 by 50 miles and are composed mostly of volcanic rocks, some limestone, deformed by broad folds. Higher slopes are wooded with pine, oak and black cherry. A very rough country, it contains white and black tail deer, bear, mountain lion, antelope, wolves and coyotes. There are deep canyons and springs. Mostly a cattle ranching country, but with a few apple orchards. This was the last home of the Mescalero Apaches, finally driven out by the soldiers from Ft. Davis, now a National Historic Site, and being restored. The old Overland Trail went from the east up deep canyons to Ft. Davis and then around the southern edge of the mountains.

57.5 If your car radio seems below par along here, don’t worry about it. You’re just pretty far from stations. Best bets are KIUN at Pecos 1400 kc, KCRS Midland 550 kc and Ft. Stockton KFST at 860 kc.

58.0 You are now in the Delaware Basin, the western section of the great Permian Basin of West Texas. It’s an underground geological basin in which sediments were deposited between 240 million and 200 million years ago. The Delaware Basin extends from the Glass Mountains on the south to about Carlsbad, New Mexico, on the north, and from the Delaware Mountains you just came through on the west, to about Pyote on the east. You’ll be over it for about 70 miles. Sediments in the center of the basin are 25,000 ft. thick. The main significance of all this is the fact that this large area is just about the hottest oil exploration region in the country now. Dozens of oil and gas fields have been discovered including the deepest producers in the world at over 22,000 ft. and each month or two a new record is set.

60.0 Take a good look at the country you’re going through, not exactly the most attractive in the world. In fact one theory is that this country exists just to hold the rest of the world together. However, the ranchers have always done pretty well and the oil lease checks are usually quite sizeable. When you get near Pecos, remember what this land looks like. The ranches are about 20 to 40 sections in size - that’s 12,000 to 25,000 acres. They run 15 to 20 cows per section. With inflation, the value of the land has gone up to about $15.00 per acre, but that’s for the surface only. It can be very valuable if you add the mineral rights. This country may come in handy if we can believe what they say about the population explosion.

62.0 Rainfall along here averages just about 10 inches a year which classifies it as a semi-desert. They get over 16 inches in the Davis Mountains and it increases to the east with remarkable uniformity toward the lower Texas-Louisiana border at the rate of one inch more of rainfall each 12-1/2 miles.

64.8 Now you’re back wit the Texas and Pacific Railroad on your left. You’ll never get far from it all the way to Dallas.

66.3 That’s the country club Residential Estates of Toyah on your right.

69.1 TOYAH. El. 2,909 ft., Pop. 294. Toyah is an Indian word meaning much water, but you’ld not know it from looking around. This town was established as a division point on the railroad in 1881. Water for the steam engines had to be brought from Monahans, 55 miles east in a daily water train until 1933 when a 6” to 14” water line was built at a cost of a million dollars. This line comes from a spring fed lake 40 miles southwest in the Davis Mountains in Big Abuja (needle) canyon. The elevation drop from 4200 ft. to 2909 ft. requires several pressure reducing stations.

75.5 Notice all the telephone and telegraph lines that parallel the road, and there are buried cables you don’t see. This is one of the most important communications corridors in the country between the East and West coasts.

75.9 You are entering the tremendous Pecos irrigation district. It is about 10 miles wide here and extends 8 miles to our left and 25 miles to your right and is underlain by 1200 ft. of water-soaked alluvium. All of this started in 1947 with the discovery of the water which turned $3.00 per acre land into $300.00 per acre land almost overnight. In fact, this land looked like the country you saw at 60.0 miles on this log before that time. In 1947, 2,500 acres were irrigated; now the total is 185,000 acres. Cotton is the main crop and production averages 2.4 bales to the acre and goes up as high as 4 bales to the acre, much of it long staple premium cotton. There are also many feed crops and the famous Pecos cantaloupe; undoubtedly the best cantaloupe in the world. The season is about July 15th to October 1st. As you go through Pecos you’ll see packing sheds and in season at any one of them you can buy a huge sack of 10 or so cantaloupe for $1.00. They’re culls with surface imperfections, but the taste is the same! Cantaloupe are shipped all over the country by express as gifts at premium prices. Much experimenting is going on in the area with various vegetables. The wells are 500 ft. to 1,000 ft. deep, depth to water 130 ft. to 350 ft., produce 200 gal. to 2,500 gal. per minute and have 16” to 18” surface casing. Each well costs $15,000 to $20,000. To raise a crop it takes 4 ft. of water on the land each year, including a certain amount to wash out the salts that accumulate. Each inch of water on the land costs 60¢ to $1.00 per acre. That’s 1,300,000 gallons on each acre each year, or about 120 billion gallons for the area. There are over 1,000 wells, between 100 and 200 acres to the well. This is really big business. Farms range up to 2,000 acres in size and a farmer may have $250,000.00 to $1,000,000.00 invested in the crop alone by harvest time. The water is produced from sand which gets its recharge from rainfall, from mountain run-off from the south, and from cretaceous limestone rock strata below the sand. Unfortunately recharge is not making up for the heavy irrigation pumping and water levels are dropping; however, the U.S. Geological Survey says there’s still an 80-year supply left.

77.0 You can spot the irrigation wells as each one has an engine, usually fueled by natural gas. The drive shaft projects out from it to the gear head immediately over the well. That horizontal oil barrel contains “drip oil” which lubricates the turbine at the bottom of the well. You’ll see a few shacks but no farmers’ homes. They live in town.

80.0 You have 4 miles to make up your mind if you’re going to by-pass Pecos on IH 20 to the south or go through town. There’s a fine new Newell-Gulf Station on IH 20 at Hwy. 285 and three of them on Hwy. 80 through town. All four of these Newell-Gulf Service Stations have Road Log No. 6E free for you to take you on to Midland. To help you make up your mind, here’s the story on Pecos.

82.4 PECOS. El. 2,580 ft., Pop. 16,000. Intersection of IH 20 (80) and Hwy. 285 which goes north to Carlsbad. The West of the Pecos Museum is just two blacks north of Hwy. 80 at the Signal light and definitely worth a visit. Hours 9 to 12 and 1 to 4 except closed Monday. Free. The building itself is a museum piece, having been a saloon in 1896 and then the hotel, added in 1907, was”the finest between El Paso and Ft. Worth.” The fact that the saloon came 11 years before the hotel in this wild and woolly frontier town was no accident and shows the perspicacity of our forefathers who put first things first. Go to see it. Pecos is the home of the world’s first rodeo, July 4, 1883, and they still hold one each year for four days, including July 4th. At this point we might as well get straight the pronunciation of Pecos and Rodeo. It’s pay-cuss with the accent on the pay. And it’s rodio as in radio with the accent on the ro.

83.9 The West Pecos Interchange. To go through the town on Hwy. 80, take right curve up on the overpass and onto Hwy. 80. This log takes the Interstate 20.

85.0 The group of buildings ahead to the left is a cotton oil mill.

86.5 PECOS AIRPORT on the right. Buildings to the left are ruins of a World War II Air Force Training Base.

88.3 Take the exit ramp to the right, then curve left on the overpass to the South Pecos Gulf Station for your next Newell-Gulf Road Log No. 6E to Midland. It will tell you about the Goodnight-Loving Trail, one of the most tremendous oil fields in the world which you pass through, the meteor crater, the Monahans Sand Hills State Park. GEOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY. You’ll enjoy your trip more if you know what you’re seeing.

89.0 SOUTH PECOS GULF STATION - Easy re-entrance to IH 20. I hope you have a wonderful trip and that you’ll come back to see us again. Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas.

Copyright W. J. Newell 1970

GET YOUR NEXT NEWELL GULF ROAD LOG

AT ANY GULF SERVICE STATION IN PECOS

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at Gulf Service Stations in West Texas for for most roads West of The Pecos River.

The Purpose of these logs is to give you interesting information about the country between towns. The Gulf Service Stations across the area have full printed separate information for you about the towns themselves. Ask for the information on Pecos while you get your tank filled at one of the Newell-Gulf Stations in Pecos.

PECOS. El. 2580. Pop. 16,000. A town with fascinating history and many places to see, especially the West of the Pecos Museum, full-size replica of Judge Roy Bean’s saloon and other sights.

Mileage

0.0 Start Mileage at the intersection of Hwy. 285 and Interstate 20 at the SOUTH PECOS GULF STATION.

Record your speedometer reading here and add it to the figures given in the margin below to get your speedometer reading at any point in the Newell-Gulf Road Log. Allow some mileage variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation also make a difference.

4.9 To the left you can see Barstow. El. 2551 ft., Pop. 707. This was the county seat 1892-1938 when the population increase at Monahans caused by the oil development enabled them to outvote Barstow. Irrigation from the Pecos was started here in 1894.

6.3 THE PECOS RIVER. Before irrigation and water impounding upstream, the Pecos was a very difficult barrier to travel. It was 65 to 100 feet wide, 8 to 10 feet deep with a rushing current and high banks. Best spot to cross was Horsehead Crossing about 60 miles southeast of here and this was the focal point of most of the early trails. The Goodnight - Loving Trail came from northeast of Abilene to near San Angelo to Horsehead Crossing, then up the west bank of the Pecos near here to Ft. Sumner, New Mexico, and Colorado. That’s the route the cattle took to market. Earlier, in 1583, Antonio de Espejo came down the Pecos along here on his return to Mexico from an exploration of New Mexico. The Butterfield Overland Mail Route was started in 1857 with a $600,000 subsidy from the U. S. Government. It went from St. Louis to Los Angeles and San Francisco, crossing the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing and up the Pecos to about the New Mexico line and on to El Paso. This stage line operated twice a week, took 25 days for the trip, cost $200 one way, a lot of money in those days.

22.0 PYOTE AIR FORCE BASE on the right was unofficially known as Rattlesnake Bomber Base in World War II. They trained crews for B 17’s and B 29’s. After the war the whole area was literally covered by “pickled” and stored planes, including the Enola Gay, which dropped the first atom bomb at Hiroshima.

23.2 Part of the old Pyote Base has been rebuilt into The West Texas Children’s Home. It takes care of dependent and neglected (not delinquent) children.

23.5 PYOTE on the left. El. 2612 ft., Pop. very few, but they had 1097 in 1930 when there was local oil development.

25.0 The most significant thing about the area covered by this log is the oil and gas production, so we’ll make an attempt at the world’s shortest geology lesson. Starting 400 to 500 million years ago a great sea, something like the present Mediterranean Sea, covered an area about 800 miles long, with its northern tip in Western Kansas, and 300 miles wide. You are now a bit west of the east-west center line. From time to time the sea level varied, dropping to expose parts of the area as land and the rest as basins. This was caused either by the great amount of water tied up in glaciers during the glacial periods, or by movement up and down of this part of the earth’s crust; possibly both happened. During the Permian Period - 240 to 200 million years ago - great thicknesses of sediments were deposited in this warm sea. Lime was precipitated to form limestone, coral-like creatures built tremendous reefs something like the great barrier reef in Australia. Anhydrite and potassium salts were deposited in the shallow portions behind the reefs as water evaporated. The teeming creatures of this sea died and sank to the stinking bottom to be covered by sediments, to decompose, and later become oil and gas. In this area the most significant underground structures are:

1. The Delaware Basin which extends from the Delaware Mountains about 40 miles west of Pecos to about Pyote. This underground basin has deposits in excess of 25,000 feet thick and is just coming into its own as far as oil and gas production is concerned. It is about the hottest exploration area in the country today. This basin is ringed by the Capitan Reef which is exposed to Capitan Mountain 60 miles north of Van Horn.

2. The Central Basin Platform extends from about Pyote to east of Odessa. This was a persistent structural “high” area which spent part of the period as a peninsula or possibly an island. Deposits were thinner, making the depth to the oil deposits shallower so this area has been more thoroughly explored by wells and contains most of the oil reserves discovered so far.

3. The Midland Basin extends from a short distance east of Odessa to beyond Big Spring. This is similar to the Delaware Basin but the thickness of the sediments is less - “only” about 18,000 feet.

The Permian Basin is the second largest oil field in the United States with over 2,800 producing reservoirs, more than 88,000 producing wells, a daily production in excess of 1,500,000 barrels of oil, so much natural gas, 25 trillion cubic feet, that the imagination can’t comprehend it. This basin contains 12.4% of the nation’s gas and 19.6% of the oil reserves - 7 billion barrels. If you’d like to know more, visit the Midland Public Library, read and study their 19,000-volume geological collection as I did to prepare this log.

27.0 ROADSIDE PARK REST AREA. The historical monument tells you that Ward County was named for Thomas William Ward.

31.8 The “pecking grasshopper” machinery is oil well pumping equipment. Most of the wells flow under natural pressure and are not as visible from the road. These are Gulf wells of course.

32.0 The Gulf tanks on the right are what is called a tank battery. This is a collecting station on an oil lease where the oil is collected and measured before being put into a pipe line. From here on this area is underlain by uncounted miles of pipe lines.

33.0 Ahead on the left is the Permian electric generating plant of the Texas Electric Service Co.

33.2 On the skyline to the left you can see the edge of the Monahans Sandhills. More about them later.

37.9 Main exit to Monahans, intersection of Hwy. 18, and a Gulf Station on the left. They can service your car if you need anything and have full printed information for you on Monahans. Easy exit and re-entrance to the interstate.

MONAHANS. El. 2611 ft., Pop. 9252. Named after Pat Monahans who dug the first water well between the Pecos River and Big Spring in 1880. You can still see the well. Nice clean oil well servicing city.

40.6 Now you’re in those sandhills.

44.0 HIGHWAY CROSSOVER. Park Road No. 41 and Historical marker. This is the Monahans Sandhills State Park and Museum and worth the very short side trip. The museum is operated by a local group, admission 25¢ and 15¢. Admission to the park road and concessions center 50¢ per car. The 1-1/2 mile road takes you into the center of the Sahara-like dune area where you can take a ride on a converted jeep dune buggy. Picnic spots. This was a stop on the Comanche War Trail used by the Indians of North Texas and Oklahoma to raid down into the relatively civilized areas of northern Mexico in the 1700’s and up to 1850. Some of the raiding parties numbered as many as 1,000 Indians. In 1846 alone they drove 10,000 head of stolen livestock north out of Chihuahua.

45.3 The picket fences on the right help control the drifting sand much like snow fences.

54.3 ROADSIDE PARK on the right ahead.

59.2 PENWELL. El. 2970, Pop. 400, and Gulf Station on the right.

59.8 The white structure ahead on the right is the Southwestern Portland Cement Co. plant. You can see the scars of the limestone quarry where they get their raw material on the edge of the hill.

60.5 You are about to go up an overpass and to the top of the hill. This is the caprock which underlies this whole area from here on.

61.5 To make that cement, limestone is crushed, a little clay and other material is added and it is put into the high end of the kiln; that’s the long horizontal tube you see. As the kiln rotates at one revolution per minute, the rock travels to the lower end against a tremendous blast of burning natural gas which heats it to incandescence - 2700 degrees - or more than one-fourth the temperature of the surface of the sun. Other materials such as gypsum are added to control the setting time and it is crushed so fine that it will pass through a sieve with 105,000 openings per square inch, a sieve that will actually hold water.

It is then loaded into paper bags which have both ends sewed up before the cement is put in. This neat trick is performed by blowing the cement in through a hole in the corner of the bag which has a flap seal to hold the cement after the tube is removed. At this plant the kiln is 400 ft. long, 11-1/2 ft. in diameter, one of the largest pieces of moving machinery in the world. Each 24 hours the kiln burns 3-1/2 million cu. ft. of gas, and each day 2,400 tons of rock are used. The silos are 121 ft. high - as high as a 10-story building, and store 3,760,000 pounds of cement. They put a mountain through a sieve - literally.

63.0 That black smoke ahead is coming from the Sid Richardson Carbon Black Plant, the largest in the world, producing 60 million pounds a year. You and I adjust our gas burners for a nice clean blue flame — and here they do just the opposite because soot is their product. Soot is so fine that a trillion particles would make a dot the size of a pinhead. Figures get so astronomical in this plant that they lose their meaning. They burn two billion cubic feet of natural gas a month in 560 burner houses, each 12 feet wide and 148 feet long and each with 3,000 burner tips - that’s 1,680,000 burner tips. Ninety-three percent goes into rubber products, mainly tires in which it acts as a binder and as a wearing surface. Without carbon black you’d get only one-tenth of the mileage. A 700x16 passenger tire contains about four pounds of carbon black. Another use is as a coloring agent. It absorbs 98% of the light that strikes it - about as deep a black as exists anywhere. A single pound mixed with 11 pounds of mineral oil will print 20,000 newspaper pages, and as a coloring agent it’s used, surprisingly enough, in chocolates and licorice.

As a filtering agent it makes brown sugar into white sugar, makes your salad oil colorless and removes the gases from radio tubes. The list of uses would take up a couple of pages and includes shoe polish, typewriter ribbon, carbon paper, blackboards, and the melting of harbor ice by absorbing heat.

A little known but very widely useful product. As you get closer you’ll notice that it doesn’t do the vegetation any good and we’ll bet this is one of the few places in the world with black jack rabbits.

HIGHWAY MARKER on the right about the Odessa Meteor Crater 3.8 miles south of here and the 2nd largest in the U.S., 6th largest in the world. A mass of 1,000 tons struck the earth, exploded or shifted 43 million cu. ft. of rock and made a crater 500 ft. in diameter and 100 ft. deep. Now filled up and eroded, it is only about 6 ft. deep with a rock buttressed rim.

67.0 Time for you to decide whether you’re going through Odessa or around it to the south on IH 20. Not much traffic either way and Gulf Stations on both routes. If you go through town you’ll end up on Hwy. 80 for Midland which is also a divided highway and just as fast as the interstate. Look around and you’ll see lots of radio towers used for oil company communications. You’ll also notice lots of transmitting antennas on cars in the area.

75.0 ODESSA, TEXAS. El. 2936 ft., Pop. a bit over 100,000 but growing so fast that any figure we’d give you would be out of date, and from a population of around 3,000 in 1930! Cleanest city in the U.S. in its population category for three straight years. Absolutely impossible to tell you in this log about Prairie Dog Park, the petrochemical complex, the dozens of other things of interest. Stop at one of the fine Gulf Stations on the highway and they’ll give you full printed information about Odessa.

75.6 To your right you'll see the petrochemical complex. Rexall, Shell, El Paso Natural Gas Co., General Tire, Southwest and American Cryogenics and others.

83.7 MIDLAND AIR TERMINAL ahead on the left, a former Air Force Base, it has the main airport of the region and an industrial area. Also KMID TV station, NBC Ch. 2, under that tent shaped concrete roof.

92.4 MIDKIFF ROAD EXIT. If you’re looking for a motel, take this exit since most of them are on the west side of town.

95.0 IH 20 and HWY. 349. Exit to right for the Gulf Station and to go downtown Midland which is just 1.8 miles. El. 2760 ft. Pop. 68,452. It’s called The Tall City and a look at the skyline tells you why. More than 650 oil and affiliated companies maintain offices here. Fine museum and public library. Just 2 miles south of the Gulf Station were found the bones of Midland Man. He dates from 20,000 years ago. Oldest human remains found on this continent.

So now we’ve come to the end of the Newell-Gulf Road Log for this highway. When you come back west, stop at any Gulf Service Station in Midland, Odessa, Sonora, Ozona or Del Rio to start your Newell-Gulf Road Log trip west across the Trans-Pecos. You’ll enjoy your trip more when you know what you’re seeing. It’s been quite a job measuring all those elevations and especially counting the oil wells and those trillion specks of carbon, but we’ve enjoyed it, and we hope you have too.

This sort of Road Log is a new idea and we’d like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas, 79830? Your frank opinion would be appreciated. We’d also like to know how you found out about these logs. We like to put them out, but we have quite a problem letting you travelers know that they’re available. We’d appreciate it very much if you’d help spread the word that these logs can be picked up at any Gulf Station in this area on the main highways west of Midland, Sonora and Del Rio and in the Big Bend National Park. All are available both eastbound and westbound. Thanks, and I hope you have a wonderful trip. Use the westbound logs when you come back. Copyright - W. J. Newell - 1970

Highway 290

Van Horn to Ft. Stockton — 125 miles

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at Gulf stations west of the Pecos.

Mileage

0.0 Van Horn. While you get your tank filled at one of the fine Gulf Stations here, ask for information on Van Horn. They have full printed information for you.

———- Record your speedometer mileage at the caution signal light, intersection of Hwys. 90 and 80. Add it to the log figures to get your mileage at any point. Allow some variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference.

0.2 Mitchell’s Gulf Service Station on left.

1.5 The Baylor Mountains are on your left. Highest point 5525 ft. Delaware Mountains are in the distance. The valley leads north 45 miles to a 35-mile long string of sometimes wet, sometimes dry, salt lakes. You are in the farthest south and east part of the Basin and Range Province. The mountains are the upthrust blocks and the valleys are the down faulted areas. Drainage in the basin heads up near the Chinati Mountains 110 miles south near Marfa, flows north through here. Since there is no out let from the basin, the water evaporates in the lakes, leaving the salt.

3.0 Wylie Mountains on the right. Highest point 5332 ft., just over a mile.

4.4 Roadside Park on right. Railroad on your left is the Texas and Pacific, a part of the Missouri-Pacific System.

6.0 Plant ahead on left crushed barite, a heavy mineral used in oilwell drilling mud. In drilling, heavy mud is forced down the center of the hollow drill stem to cool and lubricate the bit and to seal the walls of the hole as it comes back up outside the drill stem.

6.5 Wild Horse farming area on the left. There are about 60 irrigation wells about 600 ft. deep producing 1,000 to 2,000 gallons per minute. 12,000 acres in the area and 5,000 of it in one farm.

8.0 Straight out to the left behind the easternmost edge of the Baylor Mts. and behind the Delaware Mts. you can see the Guadalupe Mts. range which just comes into Texas from New Mexico. Guadalupe Mtn. on the left is the highest point in Texas, El. 8,751 ft. El Capitan with the steep bluff to the right looks higher, but it is “only” 8,078 ft. These mountains are 60 miles from you.

15.5 Sandhill area. Note how the vegetation has held the sand in place, creating hummocks when surrounding sand blew away.

17.0 Apache Mountains on left. Highest point 5,696 ft.

18.8 he city of Plateau (pronounced plat-two locally). In 1909-10 land promoters sold thousands of town lots in the East and some descendants are still paying taxes on them!

19.8 Black Peak on right. El. 4,779 ft.

20.0 At Kent, 17 miles ahead, consider taking Hwy. 118 to Ft. Davis and then back into this Hway. at Toyahvale. A slower road on account of the curves and 54 mi. longer, but a very scenic mountain area and you can see McDonald Observatory and the Old Fort Davis National Historic Site, restored and operated by the National Park Service. Scene of many Indian battles. If you take the loop through Ft. Davis, be sure to see Leonard Rinhart at the Newell-Gulf Station. He has lots of information.

27.5 Gomez Peak, El. 6398 ft. ahead on skyline to right. This is northwest corner of the Davis Mountains, mostly lava flows.

27.7 The picket fences to the left across crests of hills are snow fences.

36.9 Kent. El. 4200. Pop. 30. that peculiar-looking structure on top of the steep hill on the right used to be a water tank. Ask locally and they’ll tell you it’s a watch tower. (Used to watch for customers coming down the highway).

37.1 Intersection Hwy. 80 and 118. Ft. Davis 52 miles on 118. Road goes through the famous X Ranch owned by Reynolds Cattle Co. They have a herd of buffalo which can often be seen from the road.

39.1 Now you can see the reclining Apache Brave’s profile at the crest of Gomez Peak, the highest one ahead of you. He is lying on his back looking at the sky, head to left, hands on chest, knees elevated to right.

44.5 You’re going through a pass in the Guadalupe-Delaware-Davis north-south mountain chain, a southern extension and farthest east part of the Rocky Mountains. You’ve also come from the Basin-Range Province to the Great Plains Province, a profound change in geology and geography.

45.2 Roadside Park on right.

47.3 Road Junction. Take Hwy. 290 to right for Ft. Stockton. Elevation here 4,000 ft.

49.3 Roadside Park.

54.5 On the right and swinging around in front of you are the Davis Mountains. Highest part is on the south side beyond view from here. Mt. Livermore El. 8,382 ft. East of it there is no higher point on the North American continent. The Davis Mountains cover an area about 40 by 50 miles and are composed mostly of volcanic rocks, some limestone, deformed by broad folds. Higher slopes are wooded with pine, oak and black cherry. A very rough country, it contains white and black tail deer, bear, mountain lion, antelope, wolves and coyotes. There are deep canyons and springs. Mostly a cattle ranching country, but with a few apple orchards. This was the last home of the Mescalero Apaches, finally driven out by the soldiers from Ft. Davis, now a National Historic Site, and in the process of being restored. The old Overland Trail went from the east up deep canyons to Ft. Davis and then around the southern edge of the mountains.

58.2 If you look back at Gomez Peak from along here you’ll see the head of an Indian girl, not Mrs. Gomez. Note that neither the Apache Brave nor the Indian Girl is smiling. that’s because they’re on opposite sides of the mountain. The old legend says that if these two ever rise up, the Indians will take over this country. I say that if those rocky mountains ever rise up, they can have it.

67.8 Hwy. 17 comes in at the right from the Davis Mountains.

68.0 Toyahvale, El. 3350. Pop. 16. Toyah, an Indian word, means much water. This isn’t exactly our idea of what a railroad terminus should look like, but it is one. It’s the terminus of the Pecos Valley railroad, station off to the right. This railroad, built in 1910, goes 40 miles north to join the T & P and the Santa Fe at Pecos.

68.2 Balmorhea State Park. Motel, restaurant, camping, picnicking and plenty of room for swimming. That’s the world’s largest walled swimming pool and San Solomon Springs, 26 million gallons a day year around at 72 degrees, is right in the bottom of the pool. Indian campsites are found in this area and old Indian irrigation ditches can be seen from the air.

72.2 Balmorhea Lake is 2 miles to your right. This is fed by San Solomon and two other springs and by a canal which brings flood waters from Madera Canyon. It’s a storage lake for the irrigation district. Development began in 1870. There are 10,608 acres of irrigable land, but water supply limits the use to about 5,000 to 8,000 acres. Season is mid-March to mid-October. About 31” of water is used to raise a crop.

72.3 Balmorhea, El. 3205 ft. Pop. 1,000. Jimmy’s Gulf Station and Store is on your left. A good place to tank up or take on a fine supply of everything you’d need on a picnic. The town was laid out in 1910 by a Mr. Balcom, a Mr. Morrah and a Mr. Rhea, hence the name, Balmorhea. It is a supply center for the farms and ranches.

73.2 Cross the railroad to the Brogado settlement. This was originally a Mescalero Apache village; later the Spanish built a fort. Note the shrine left of road. That’s also the explanation for the cross on the mountain on the right and others in the area.

76.0 Area with trees at right was formerly a Texas State experimental farm now a private farm.

77.4 Highway 17 takes off to left for Pecos. Roadside Park at left.

78.0 Through this irrigated area you’ll see barrels with round fluorescent tubes on top. These are bug catchers. Insects attracted by the light are pulled in by a fan and drowned by chemicals.

80.0 The land along here is irrigated by wells, south tip end of the tremendous Reeves County well irrigation area. This is a strip 10 miles wide by 25 miles north to south underlain by 1200 ft. of water-soaked alluvium. Crops are cotton, feed crops, cantaloupe and much experimenting is going on with vegetables. Wells are 500 to 1,000 ft. deep, depth to water 130 ft. to 350 ft., produce 200 gal. to 2500 gal. per minute, have 16 in. to 18 in. surface casing. Each well costs $15,000 to $20,000. To raise a crop it takes 4 ft. of water each year, including a certain amount to wash out the salts that accumulate. Each inch of water on the land costs 60¢ to $1.00 per acre. That’s 1,300,000 gallons on each acre each year. Water used in the area about 120 billion gallons a year. In this county (Reeves) there are 111,000 acres irrigated by 975 wells, an average of 114 acres per well. Pecos County immediately east of Reeves has almost the same amount of acreage under irrigation. Really big business. Farms range up to 2,000 acres in size and a farmer may have as much as $250,000 to $1,000,000 invested in his crop alone by harvest time. The water is produced from sand which gets its recharge from rainfall, from mountain run-off from the south, and from cretaceous limestone rock strata below the sand. Unfortunately recharge is not making up for the heavy irrigation pumping. Water levels have dropped since irrigation was started in 1947 but the U.S. Geological Survey says they still have 80 years supply. The discovery of this water field caused quite a change in land values. It changed $3.00 per acre land into $300.00 land almost overnight.

86.0 The road is leaving the irrigate area, but you can still see the fields and farms in the distance to the left.

89.1 These are the first mesas (Spanish for table) on the right. Caused by erosion when a hard horizontally bedded rock is underlain by a softer rock. You’ll see hundreds of them between here and the Pecos River.

91.7 Barilla Draw bridge. Drainage from Ft. Davis and higher in the mountains comes down Limpia Canyon and through here. This draw can fill wit water after a rain in the mountains. Explorer Antonio Espejo took this route through the mountains in 1583. Later it was the route of the Emigrant Trail of the Gold Rush and the Overland Trail and the Butterield Mail route. A stage station was just south of here.

98.8 Roadside Park.

100.0 From here on you will probably see oil drilling rigs in the distance to your left. You are now in - or rather over - the Delaware Basin. this is the western section of the great Permian Basin of West Texas. This is an underground geological basin in which sediments were deposited between 240 million and 200 million years ago. The Delaware Basin extends from the Glass Mountains on the south to about Carlsbad, New Mexico, on the north, and from the Davis and Delaware Mountains on the west to Ft. Stockton on the east. Sediments in the center of the basin are 25,000 ft. thick. The main significance of all this is the fact that this large area is just about the hottest oil exploration region in the country now. Dozens of oil and gas fields have been discovered including the deepest producers in the world at over 22,000 ft., and each month or two a new record is set. This development hasn’t hurt the economy of Ft. Stockton and Pecos.

110.8 The Firestone Tire Test track is ahead on your left. The track is 8 miles long. 80 employees and they rack up 5 million miles a year. Tire testing is quite an industry in West Texas. The Automotive Proving Grounds southeast of Pecos, largest in the world with a 10 mile circumference, tests B.F.Goodrich, Armstrong and Sears tires. Cars roll around and around 24 hours a day with only one purpose - to wear out tires. Goodyear has a track near San Angelo, there is an independent testing company at Marfa, another at Uvalde and U.S. Tire Co. is at Laredo.

114.4 Highway 67 comes in at the right from Alpine, Marfa and its terminus at Presidio on the Mexican border.

115.4 Another well irrigation area is off to the right. If we seem to talk a lot about water, it’s because what you ain’t got much of, becomes pretty important. For 375 miles across West Texas, there are only two streams that run all the time, the Pecos and the Rio Grande. They’re called rivers only through courtesy and in contrast to the dry beds that carry water only during rains. Fortunately there is underground water throughout the whole area. Wells range from a dribble of a few gallons a minute in windmill stock wells to tremendous 2500 gallon a minute irrigation wells.

118.2 Roadside Park on the left. Leon Springs is off to your right about 2 miles. This was another famous water and stage stop on the early trails.

121.5 This is the south edge of the Ft. Stockton oil field. Note that some of the wells are pumpers and others, without the walking beams, are producing under their own pressure.

123.0 Entering Ft. Stockton. Two fine Newell-Gulf Service Stations here. The first one is the Stockton Gulf Service on your left at the Highway 18 intersection operated by Burton Atkins. He has another one of these Newell-Gulf Road Logs for you, No. 8E, to take you from Ft. Stockton to Sonora on Hwy. 290.

125.0 You are at the railroad crossing, the Main St. crossing, and the intersection of Hwy. 1053 to the north. The Newell-Gulf Super Station, operated by Red Spence, is directly ahead of you. He also has for you the Hwy. 290 Newell-Gulf Road Log No. 8E. to take you from Ft. Stockton to Ozona and Sonora. This log will tell you about the old trails - 7 of them that converged here. It will tell you about Comanche Springs, most famous watering place in all West Texas, Cabeza de Vaca, the Pecos River, Texas Ranger Stations, oil fields, the Edwards Plateau, limestone caves, history, geography, geology, points of interest. You’ll enjoy your trip more if you know what you’re seeing.

125.0 Ft. Stockton El. 2954 ft. Pop. 7500. A very interesting town and both of the Newell-Gulf Stations have full printed information about it or you. Read about and see the Old Fort and Cemetery, Comanche Springs, the Riggs Museum, historical court house square, the Zero stone.

This type of log is a new idea and we’d surely like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas, and give him your frank opinion of it? He’d also like to know how you found out about these logs. We like to put these logs out, but we have a bit of a problem letting you travelers know that they’re available. We’d appreciate it if you’d help spread the word that these logs can be picked up at any Gulf Service Station in the area on the highways listed: Hwy. 80 between El Paso and Midland; Hwy. 290 between El Paso and Sonora; Hwy. 90 between El Paso and Del Rio. Thanks.

GET YOUR NEXT NEWELL-GULF ROAD LOG

— FREE TO CUSTOMERS —

AT EITHER GULF SERVICE STATION

IN FORT STOCKTON

Copyright © W.J. Newell 1966

Highway 290

Fort Stockton to Ozona and Sonora 149 Miles

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at the Newell-Gulf Service Stations in West Texas. They are available for Hwy. 80 (I.S. 20 & 10) between Midland and El Paso, for Hwy. 290 (I.S. 10) between Sonora and El Paso and for Hwy. 90 between Del Rio and El Paso. Use them on your next trip this way.

While you have your gasoline tank filled by Red Spence at the Gulf Super Service Station, or Burton Atkins at the Stockton Gulf Station, ask them for complete printed free information on Ft. Stockton. It’s a very interesting city with the Old Fort and Cemetery, Comanche Springs, Riggs Museum, historical Courthouse and the Zero Stone.

_____ Record your mileage here at the railroad crossing of Hwy. 290 and the Gulf Super Service Station. Add it to the figures given in this log to get your speedometer reading at any point. Allow some mileage variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference.

Mileage

0.0 Fort Stockton, El. 2954. Pop. 7500.

0.2 Hwy. 285 takes off to your right. If you go down it .3 miles, then curve to your right another .3 mi. you’ll come to the swimming pool. Comanche Springs is located at the south end of the big building. Dry now, until a few years ago it flowed 30 million gallons a day and was the sole factor that determined the location of all the old trails through here, the location of Ft. Stockton, and, in fact, even the location of the present day highways which followed the old trails. Irrigation pumping has reduced the water level, stopping the springs. There were many Indian battles around here. First irrigation from the springs was in 1877 with 8,000 acres cultivated. Ft. Stockton, right on top of these springs, now has to pipe water from wells 10-1/2 miles to the southwest.

1.8 Ahead to the right is 3 mile mesa. To the left is 7 mile mesa, El. 3210 ft. This is capped by Cretaceous Limestone, 100 million years old, and you’ll see this kind of rock for more than 150 miles.

2.0 Trails. This is the country of many ancient trails. Determining factors for the routes were water supply in this arid country and avoidance of natural barriers such as mountains and river gorges. There were just two practical crossings of the Pecos river east of you. One was Pontoon Crossing, near where you will cross it on Hwy. 290, and the other and better one was Horsehead Crossing 14 mi. east of Imperial, Texas, about 25 miles north of your present location. The huge water supply at Comanche Springs you just left, the flat country, the proximity of two river crossings, mad Comanche Springs the crossing point show that they still cross at Ft. Stockton. Highways followed the trails.

1. The Great Salt Trail was used by Indians of pre-history who came from northern Mexico through Presidio, along the present route of the Santa Fe RR, through Comanche Springs and on up into the salt lakes of Crane County, about 30 miles NE of Ft. Stockton. They also hunted buffalo which were more numerous east of the Pecos.

2. First white man through here was Cabeza de Vaca in 1535. He crossed the Pecos near Pontoon crossing, came along the route of Hwy. 290 you are now on to Comanche Springs, then turned southwest through what is now the Big Bend National Park, eventually rejoining his countrymen near the west coast of Mexico.

3. In 1583 Antonio de Espejo came down the Pecos river, through Comanche Springs, on his return to Mexico from an exploration of New Mexico.

4. The Comanche Trail. During the 1700’s and early 1800’s Indians from north Texas and Oklahoma made raids down through Comanche Springs into the relatively civilized areas of northern Chihuahua for livestock and plunder.

5. The Chihuahua Trail came up nearly the same route as the Salt Trail from the city of Chihuahua to Comanche Springs, Horsehead Crossing, then turned east to San Antonio and Indianola, a port on the Gulf of Mexico. This 1150-mile route was first used in 1839 and by 1848 it carried much more traffic than the better publicized Santa Fe Trail.

6. The Overland Trail, sometimes called the Emigrant Trail, was opened in 1849 as people pressed westward in the gold rush. This trail crossed the Pecos where you will cross it today - at Pontoon Crossing. It came along the Hwy. 290 route through Comanche Springs and turned southwest through the Davis Mountains at Barilla Draw, 33 miles west of Ft. Stockton. It went through Limpia Canyon and around the south end of the Davis Mountains to El Paso and San Diego. It was to protect this trail from Indian attacks that Ft. Stockton, Ft. Davis and all the other West Texas Forts were built.

7. The Butterfield Overland Mail Route. Started in 1857 with a $600,000.00 a year subsidy from the U. S. Government. It went from St. Louis to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Originally it went across the Pecos at Horsehead Crossing and then up the Pecos to about the New Mexico line and on to El Paso. In 1859, for better water stops, it came through Comanche Springs and followed the Overland Trail to the west. This stage line operated twice a week, took 25 days for the trip, and cost $200.00, much money in those days.

8. the Old Spanish Trail. Both Hwy. 290 and Hwy. 90 claim to be the Old Spanish Trail, but we couldn’t find it in history, unless they mean the Chihuahua Trail. Of course, we’ve no doubt that many old Spaniards did trail around out here, so maybe they’re both right.

12.4 This is the Transwestern Pipe Line crossing. Note the painted fence posts. A 20-inch line, it picks gas up in the Puckett Field which we’ll tell you about in a minute, and takes it up through New Mexico and on to California. Pressure right here is 900 pounds per square inch. There are five compressor stations on the route and four more are being built to increase the capacity which now is “only” 120 million cu. ft. per day. Gas at this point is traveling about 15 miles per hour. The gas going under you right now will be burning in California in a little less than a week.

15.7 Hwy. Y, No. 67 to the left goes to San Angelo and Dallas. Very nice Roadside Park here with a sign that says “Use of Firearms in This Park Prohibited.” Is it a coincidence that the draw to your right is named Six Shooter Draw? Anyway, all of this shows that you are still “West of the Pecos.”!

17.5 Hwy. 2023 to the right goes to the Puckett Gas Field. 14 miles, one of the largest in the entire country. Gas is treated to remove sulphur and carbon dioxide and then piped through very large lines to California. You will pass over more of these lines a few miles ahead.

20.0 Roadside Park. Tunis Springs Ranger Station rebuilt with original rock. First location was 1.2 mile southwest under the hill. A stage stop on the Overland Trail 1850 until 1882 when the completion of the T & P RR through Pecos put the stages out of business. If you’ll stop and look to the west you can see the exact location of the old Overland Trail just south of the present highway.

23.2 Darrell’s Peak to the right.

25.0 El Paso Natural Gas Co. 20” gas line from the Puckett Field up through Roswell and then to the Pacific Coast goes under the road here. Note the distinctively painted fence posts to warn against digging and road grading near the line.

27.8 Phillips Gas Line crossing. Note the scar up the mountain on the left. In this country a scar in a straight line going up the mountain like this is the sign of a gas or oil pipe line.

30.7 Northern Natural Gas Co. pipe line crossing with the yellow fence posts, a 20” line at 850 lbs. pressure.

32.2 Squaw Teat Peak straight ahead. This is a mesa in its last stages. Probably won’t last more than another hundred thousand years.

34.0 Along here you’ll see pumping oil wells with the walking beam that looks like a pecking grasshopper.

35.5 Bakersfield, Texas. El. 2500. Pop. 50. Farm Road 11 north to Imperial. The oil wells are quite old and shallow - 900 to 1700 ft. deep and still producing. Note unusual situation with wells in highway right of way and old wooden tanks.

42.6 White Baker Oil and Gas Field.

47.0 Along about here the road signs start arguing with each other about Hwy. 29 and U.S. 290. We’ll take 290.

48.1 U.S. 290, State 29 junction. The Yates Oil Field is to the left at Iraan (named for Ira and Ann Yates). When discovered in 1926, it was the first field West of the Pecos and the world’s largest. Wells produced now up to 200,000 bbls. of oil a day; total production is now over a half billion barrels of oil and still producing after 40 years. Wells average only 1150 ft. deep compared to many that go over 22,000 ft. today. 632 wells were drilled in the 25,000 acre field and 500 still flow under natural pressure.

48.2 Roadside Park to the Right. Four Mile Draw to the right. That’s four miles to the Pecos River via the draw.

60.0 Annual rainfall across this area from Van Horn to the Pecos River averages 12” to 14” a year. It increases to 16” at Midland, Ozona and in the Davis Mountains. From Ozona eastward rainfall increases quite uniformly to 56” along the Louisiana border. In fact, for each 11 miles east from Ozona, rainfall increases pretty close to one inch. That’s one reason Texas has almost every sort of vegetation from the true desert type near El Paso, to the huge forests of East Texas. In the area you’re crossing, 60% of the rain falls June through September. Evaporation from an open water surface, such as a stock tank, is 96” a year which is eight times the rainfall.

66.5 Hwy. 349 Intersection to Iraan.

71.2 Sheffield Pop. 350. Hales Gulf Station on the right. He’s a specially good mechanic. This was a wild and woolly town in the early days. Home of Black Jack Ketchum and his brothers, who figured in many post office, rain, and bank robberies. Should tell you here that this the last settlement before Crockett County which is dry as a bone. Not even beer.

71.8 A mile to your left over the hill are the Pecos Springs. A stage station on the Overland Trail.

75.1 Pecos River Crossing. As late as the 1880’s the Pecos was 100 feet wide, 6 to 10 ft. deep, had steep banks and a strong current making it quite an obstacle to travel. Pontoon crossing near this point was one of the two practical river crossing in all of West Texas. To the south the Pecos enters a canyon with sheer 350-ft. walls.

78.9 Live Oak Creek Bridge. Live Oak Creek joins the Pecos about 3/4 mile below this bridge. It was near here that Cabeza de Vaca crossed the Pecos in 1535.

79.6 Roadside Park and Historical Marker that has been stolen. To your left you can see the chimneys and ruins of Fort Lancaster, cavalry camp that protected the trail from 1854 to 1861, when it was abandoned on account of the Civil War. University of Texas archeologists are working on the site and a loop road is to be built as soon as possible. Gates are locked now.

80.3 You are starting up the escarpment of the Edwards Plateau, southernmost unit of the Great Plains, underlain mostly by horizontally bedded Comanche Limestone.

82.1 Top of the escarpment and Roadside Park to the right. fine view.

82.8 You are now on top of the Edwards Plateau. Note the very different vegetation. More rainfall here but very little surface water and thin soil. In spite of this it is a very fine ranching country.

104.0 A Texas and New Mexico Pipe Line Co. station. There are four 80,000 bbl. and one 120,000 bbl. tanks for a total of 18,480,000 gallons of storage. This line is a small one by today’s standards - 12” in diameter. Stations like this one are located each 50 miles or so from Jal. New Mexico, to the terminus at Houston. At Jal, the line connects with the Basin system that goes all the way to Utah. Three 600 H.P. diesel-power pumps force the oil into the tanks at the next station down the line and so on. Various types of oils are shipped through in batches and segregated in the tanks. The line is buried 18” to 24” deep and is patrolled by an airplane once a week looking for possible leaks. The oil travels about 4 miles an hour.

107.9 Hwy. 2083 at the right goes to Pandale.

109.7 Roadside Park on left.

112.5 Ozona. El. 2348. Pop. 3500. County Seat but not an incorporated town. Wool and mohair center. Reputed to have more millionaires (32) for its size than any other town and they made it from ranching. Oil came later and most of it is on University of Texas land. Only town in the county, only schools in the county, only post office. No RR station in the county.

112.5 Bud Harrison’s Gulf Station on the right is a good place to fill up with gasoline. Bud is helping us distribute these logs. He’ll give you complete printed information on Ozona and Crockett County (named for Davy). Note especially the lovely homes as you leave Ozona.

115.7 Roadside Park and Historical Monument on left.

117.6 Crockett Heights residential area. Formerly Ozona Air Force Station.

127.4 Roadside Park on right.

131.0 You are 10 miles from the turn-off to the Caverns of Sonora. Time to consider this side trip. These caverns are 7 miles from this highway on excellent road. Open 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. Among the most beautiful in the world, they are well worth the side trip. You’ll never have to wait more than 30 minutes for a tour and the trip through takes an hour to an hour and a half. Take your camera. Free picnic and trailer camp sites, a zoo, snack restaurant, free barbecue pits and wood. Very lovely, well-kept spot.

137.2 Atlantic Pipe Line Co. station on left.

143.0 Roadside Park on right.

147.1 Roadside Park on right.

148.7 Sonora El. 2120. Pop. 2839. A ranching and oil supply point. Only town in the county. Wool and mohair center, also quarter horses.

149.2 Rex Merriman’s Gulf Service Station on your left. Rex will give you full printed information on Sonora while you fill up with gasoline — and we hope you will, because Rex has cooperated with us in getting these logs out.

Sorry, but this is the end of the Newell-Gulf Road Log route. When you come back west, stop at any Gulf Station in Sonora, Ozona, Midland, Odessa, or Del Rio to start your Newell-Gulf log trip across the Trans-Pecos. You’ll enjoy your trip more when you know what you’re seeing. It’s been quite a job climbing all those mountains to measure the elevations and counting all the people in those towns, but we’ve enjoyed it and we hope you have too.

This type of road log is a new idea and we’d sort of like to know what you think of it. If you have time, why not drop a note or card to Johnny Newell, Box 390, Alpine, Texas 79830? Your frank opinion would be appreciated. He’d also like to know how you found out about these logs. We like to put these logs out, but we have a bit of a problem letting you travelers know that they’re available. We’d appreciate it if you’d help spread the word that these logs can be picked up at any Gulf Service Station in the area on the highways listed; Hwy. 80 between El Paso and Midland; Hwy. 290 between El Paso and Sonora; Hwy. 90 between El Paso and Del Rio. All are available eastbound and westbound. Thanks and we hope you have a nice trip. Use the westbound logs when you come back this way.

copyright © W.J. Newell 1966

Mileage

0.0 El Paso. Airway at Montana. This is the main entrance to the Municipal Airport Terminal to the north. Breezy Reeves Gulf Station is on the southeast corner. Head east on Montana, Hwy. 62 & 180.

RECORD your mileage here in the margin and add it to the log figures to get your speedometer reading at any point. Allow some variation.

1.0 TOWER on your left is the control tower for the Municipal Airport. Biggs Field (United States Air Force) is behind it.

1.2 ON LEFT IS EL PASO sector headquarters of the Border Patrol. There are 11 sectors on the Mexican border, next one east is at Marfa. About 200 employees here. Illegal aliens are held in separately administered detention camp in the rear for one to ten days awaiting transportation. They use buses, two convairs and one DC 6 to return the w_______ to a border point near their home in the hope that they’ll go home and not come back. Entering the U.S. illegally is a misdemeanor unless they have a criminal record or have previously been officially deported in which case it is a felony and they’re turned over to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

3.4 THE DESERT again. Note how the vegetation holds the soil, causing hummocks.

3.6 ARTILLERY RANGE on the left, part of Ft. Bliss which will be on that side most of the way to the county line.

4.3 HUECO MOUNTAINS ahead. Hueco means empty or hollow. High point on the left is Sierra Alto, El. 6717 ft.

5.6 U.S. ARMY Electronics Test Center on left.

6.0 YOU are driving over the Hueco Bolson. This is composed of unconsolidated sands, gravel, clays, boulders washed down from surrounding mountains. This bolson is up to 5,000 ft. thick in places. Great mountains are destined to end up as undignified piles of rubble.

9.0 THAT SMALL BUILDING off to the right is a relay amplifier for a main line phone cable. You’ll see them each 4 or 5 miles.

9.4 THE GREEN WALL to the right is The Hueco, a private club.

13.1 SEVERAL large high pressure gas lines cross under the road here. They come from the Permian Basin and go to California.

20.0 HUECO TANKS, a 740 acre county park, is 8 miles to the left. Unusual rock formations and four tanks. This was a water hole and stage stand on the Southern Overland Mail Stage Line from St. Louis to San Francisco (Butterfield Line). There were Indian fights here and some of the stage station walls are still standing.

22.0 YOU’RE climbing up to a pass. The structure ahead on the ridge is an abandoned air force radar station.

24.2 ROADSIDE PARK on left.

27.1 IN THE PASS NOW. The Gulf Station on the right is run by Lloyd Marie.

33.0 ANOTHER PHONE BUILDING. Don’t bother to stop to read those yellow signs. They say, “don’t dig, underground cable.”

38.0 ROADSIDE PARK left. In the far distance ahead to the left you can see the Guadalupe Mountains with the steep cliff of El Capitan. Between here and there, the Sierra Inaja Pinta, El. 5610 ft. To the right of El Capitan and lower, the Delaware Mts. Farther right but closer is Sierra Diablo. About 60 miles airline from here to El Capitan.

46.5 THEY call this 40-mile hill. It’s downgrade most of the way to the salt lakes. You may see antelope in the area. The Hueco Mountains, the Delawares, the Sierra Diablos are fault block mountains. Great masses have been thrust up leaving the basins between without any drainage outlet. Drainage for the basin in front of you heads up on the northwest slope of the Chinati Mountains, 40 miles southwest of Marfa, crosses Hwy. 80 five miles east of Van Horn. With no outlet the water evaporates, leaving the salt.

47.0 EACH 10 MILES the Highway Dept. has a mileage sign. Distances out in West Texas are so great that motorists need these signs for encouragement to show that at least they’re making some progress.

57.3 CORNUDAS, TEXAS, El. 4480. Lee Tinnin’s Gulf station. Population goes up 25% on week-ends when his daughter is home. Sheep don’t do well in this area. It’s mostly cattle. The Butterfield Trail was up near the New Mexico line in this area.

59.9 THE CLOSER MOUNTAIN to the right ahead is Black Mountain, beyond it the Sierra Diablo. Straight ahead the Delawares, to the left of them, the Guadalupes. Directly left the Sierra Inaja Pinta. Behind them the Cornudas (curved horn) in New Mexico. The Cornudas are igneous plugs. We will go between the Delawares and the Sierra Diablos. Mostly creosote bush (greasewood) along here.

73.6 DELL City is 13 miles to the left. A large well irrigated farming area.

74.2 THE SALT BASIN LAKES are ahead. You see the white salt when it’s dry.

80.1 SALT FLAT, Tex. El 3727 ft., Pop. 12. Viola Nelson is the postmaster at the only postoffice on the highway between El Paso and Carlsbad - 166 miles. Starting with El Capitan, El. 8078 and going to the left you can see Guadalupe, El. 8751, highest in Texas, then Shumard, El. 8626, Bartlet, El. 8513, Bush, El. 8676 then Blue Ridge, El. 8374. The notches between them are heads of canyons running to the northeast. The Patterson Hills are between us and El Capitan. North of the Patterson Hills are mountains known ungramatically as the Brokeoff Mountains.

82.8 ROADSIDE PARK left. The Capitan Limestone forms an escarpment that runs from El Capitan northeast almost to Carlsbad. It is probably the largest known fossil barrier reef, ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 ft. thick and 2-1/2 to 3 miles wide. A modern example of a barrier reef is the one along the coast of Australia today. In Permian times, 200 million years ago, there was a continent northwest of here and a basin to the southeast. The reef between was built up of the skeletons of marine organisms such as coral, which lived, died, and whose successors built on their remains. The huge deposits of limestone in front of and behind the reef proper are portions of the reef broken off by the action of the sea. Deposits of Permian age, exposed here but far underground to the east produce much of West Texas oil and have given to that area the name Permian Basin.

84.5 NORTH END of the Sierra Diablo is to the right. Historical monument tells of the Salt War. For centuries the salt flats had been the main salt supply for what is now the El Paso area and even Chihuahua to the south. In 1877 the land was “bought” and the owners attempted to keep people out. There was some fighting in this area but the war culminated in a battle at San Elizario on the Rio Grande, near present El Paso.

86.0 GAS LINES are buried on your left. Note oil line with expansion joints on trestle on your right. Phone line is buried south of the oil line.

86.5 IF YOUR SPEEDOMETER agrees with mine, you’re now in the middle of the salt lake (if it’s been raining to the south) or the salt flat (if the weather’s been dry). Water dies in the desert. This is the bottom of that 40-mile hill. El. 3680 ft. The flat is white when dry, brown when damp. Up near Dell City, about 15 miles northwest of here, they play golf on the salt flat, and of course, they have to use colored balls. It’s something of a shock to come along here after rains and see people water skiing out there - but they do!

91.6 EL PASO NATURAL GAS Compressor Station on left. Two 30” pipelines, one 26” line, two 16” lines come through here from the Permian Basin and Ft. Stockton area and go to California. Thirty-five families live here. Gas comes in at 600 lbs. pressure, leaves at 837 lbs. pressure after going through compressors driven by 25, 1,000 hp engines. They have these large compressor stations about each 75 miles with a couple of smaller turbine type stations in between. Twelve million cubic feet of gas goes through here each day.

92.2 ON TOP of the bridge you can see a lighted airway beacon and the Guadalupe Weather Station. No one up there; it’s all run by remote control from Salt Flat.

94.9 THAT LONE CONE ahead is called Lone Cone.

95.4 INTERSECTION WITH Hwy. 54 to Van Horn. This log will continue up Guadalupe Canyon to Pine Spring.

100.1 ROADSIDE PARKS on both sides of road. El. 4930. A monument on the right shows direction of all the mountains. The monument on the other side of the road tells about mine legends, large trees in the mountains and 12,000 year old Indian caves.

103.6 ROADSIDE PARK on left.

104.7 GUADALUPE PASS El. 5695 ft. You might want to compare this elevation to that of the Continental Divide west of Deming, New Mexico - 4587 ft.

105.0 PINE SPRINGS. The springs are about 1/2 mile up the canyon. Ruins of the 1858 - 59 Butterfield Trail stage station are easily accessible, just a couple of hundred feet north of the marker west of the highway barn. After 1859 the trail was changed to the Davis Mountain route, more water, fewer Indians.

RESET your speedometer or record mileage. We’re going to start over at the intersection of US 62-180 and the Van Horn Hwy. No. 54.

0.0 HEAD SOUTH from road intersection.

1.3 DRAWBRIDGE and just beyond it the old Carlsbad-El Paso road. Well, it’s a bridge over a draw, isn’t it?

3.0 BLACK JOHN HILL to the right. An upthrown block, water wells in the faults around it produce up to 5,000 gal. per minute. Largest in the region. Of course, it’s now illegal to speak of Black Johns.

7.9 MOUNTAINS on the skyline beyond the Sierra Diablo are the Baylors, El. 5525 ft.

13.4 THE FAULT SCARP we parallel on the left is the west side of the Delawares. The other side is a gentler dip, slopes down to the Gypsum Plains and the Delaware Basin where there is much oil production.

13.5 TO THE RIGHT are South, Middle and North Mesas. On the eastern rim of North and Middle Mesas can be found stone barricades used by snipers during the Salt War.

16.2 FOR QUITE A DISTANCE the road cuts are in gypsum dunes. That gray dirt shows crystals when seen through a magnifying glass.

25.9 THE BAYLOR MOUNTAINS ahead. The domed ridge left of them is the west end of the Apache Mountains.

27.6 SOUTHERNMOST LAKE in the Salt Flat Bolson to the left. To right are caves in which Indian artifacts are found.

30.4 BRIDGE with Victorio Canyon directly to the right. Victorio Peak on south side of the canyon. Lower red and green slopes are Precambrian rocks 950 million years old.

42.1 NOW YOU CAN SEE the Beach Mountains ahead, El. 5790 ft.

42.9 ROAD to the right goes to abandoned Hazel silver mine.

46.2 WILD HORSE irrigated area in valley to left.

48.6 FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ahead, the mountains are the Wylie, the Sierra Vieja and the Van Horn mountains.

52.8 MOUNTAINS in distance to the right are the Eagle Mountains.

55.2 VAN HORN. El. 4950 ft. Pop. 2100. Three fine Gulf dealers here who helped make these logs possible. Need I say more?

To continue on the Texas Mountain Trail to Ft. Davis and Alpine, go to Newell - Gulf Rod Log No. 12E. They are available free at all Van Horn Gulf Station. Have a good trip!

Copyright © W. J. Newell, 1968

These unique Road Logs are available free to customers at Gulf Service Stations West of the Pecos.

Mileage

0.0 VAN HORN. El. 4950 ft. Pop. 2100. Get your tank filled at one of the three fine gulf stations here. They have information for you about Van Horn.

RECORD your speedometer mileage at the caution signal light, intersection of Hwy. 80 and Hwy. 90. Add it to the log figures to get your mileage at any point. Allow some variation. Speedometers do vary and tire tread wear and inflation make a difference.

0.2 MITCHELL’S GULF SERVICE STATION on the left.

1.5 THE BAYLOR MOUNTAINS are on your left. Highest point 5525 ft. Delaware Mountains are in the distance. The valley leads north 45 miles to a 35-mile long string of sometimes wet, sometimes dry, salt lakes. You are in the farthest south and east part of the Basin and Range Province. The mountains are the upthrust blocks and the valleys are the down faulted areas. Drainage in the basin heads up near the Chinati Mountains, 110 miles south near Marfa, flows north through here. Since there is no outlet from the basin, the water evaporates in the lakes, leaving salt.

3.0 WYLIE MOUNTAINS on the right. Highest point 5332 ft., just over a mile.

4.4 ROADSIDE PARK on right. Railroad on your left is the Texas and Pacific.

6.0 PLANT ahead on left crushes barite, a heavy mineral used in oilwell drilling mud. In drilling, heavy mud is forced down the center of the hollow drill stem to cool and lubricate the bit and to seal the walls of the hole as it comes back up outside the drill stem.

6.5 WILD HORSE farming area on the left. There are about 60 irrigation wells about 600 Ft. deep producing 1,000 to 2,000 gallons per minute. 12,000 acres in the area and 5,000 of it in one farm.

8.0 STRAIGHT OUT TO THE LEFT behind the easternmost edge of the Baylor Mts. and behind the Delaware Mts. you can see the Guadalupe Mts. range which just comes into Texas from New Mexico. Guadalupe Mtn. on the left is the highest point in Texas, el. 8751 ft. El Capitan with the steep bluff to the right looks higher, but it is “only” 8,078 ft. These mountains are 60 miles from you.

15.5 SANDHILL AREA. Note how the vegetation has held the sand in place, creating hummocks when surrounding sand blew away.

18.8 THE CITY OF PLATEAU (pronounced plat-two locally). In 1909-10 land promoters sold thousands of town lots in the East and some descendants are still paying taxes on them.

27.7 THE PICKET FENCES to the left across crests of hills are snow fences.

34.2 THE APACHE MOUNTAINS are to your left, the Davis Mountains to your right.

34.5 YOU CAN SEE the figure of the Apache Brave on the skyline, highest point ahead to the right. His head is to the left facing the sky, then his neck, hands folded on his chest, knees elevated to the right. Note that he is definitely a brave. From the other side of the mountain this figure looks like an Indian maiden. Neither of them are smiling because they’re on opposite side of the mountain. Legends say that if these two ever rise up, the Indians will reclaim this country. I say that if these rocky mountains ever rise up, they can have it!

36.9 KENT, El. 4200. Pop. 30. That peculiar-looking structure on top of the steep hill to the right used to be a water tank. Ask locally and they’ll tell you it’s a watch tower. (Used to watch for customers coming down the highway).

37.1 INTERSECTION with Hwy. 118. This log turns right on Hwy. 118 toward Ft. Davis. Newell - Gulf Road Log No. 7 E goes on to Pecos.

37.6 YOU ARE STARTING up into the Davis Mountains. Highest part is on the south side beyond view from here, Mt. Livermore, E. 8382 ft. is the highest. East of it there is no higher point on the North American continent. The Davis Mountains cover an area about 40 by 50 miles and are composed mostly of volcanic rocks, some limestone, deformed by broad folds. Higher slopes are wooded with pine, oak and black cherry. A very rough country, it contains black and white tail deer, bear, mountain lion, antelope, wolves and coyotes. There are deep canyons and springs. Mostly cattle ranching country, but with some apple orchards.

42.1 TO THE LEFT, the famous X Ranch owned by the Reynolds Cattle Co. There are buffalo in there.

45.7 YOU ARE GOING up Adobe Canyon. The peaks on each side are capped by volcanic lava.

54.3 YOU WILL recognize Sawtooth Mountain, El. 7748 ft. on the horizon.

57.3 ALONG HERE you’ll see Mt. Livermore, El. 8382 ahead.

59.1 SINCE WE’VE COME into a higher elevation, there’s more rainfall and therefore more trees, especially in the canyons.

59.7 JUNCTION of Hwy. 118 and 166 which is the Scenic Loop. Loop to right goes around the south side of the mountains. We go to left.

61.0 YOU WILL start to see the very fine points of interest signs installed on the scenic loop by the Highway Department.

64.2 NOW NOTICE that the mountains are pretty well forested.

65.1 MADERA CANYON ROADSIDE PARK. Overnight camping on the Scenic Loop is discouraged because in the summer it is pretty well jammed with week-enders from the Permian Basin. El. 5840 here.

70.5 NOW YOU can see the McDonald Observatory domes on Mt. Locke, el. 6751 ft. The new Observatory is on the left. This region is now one of the most important astronomical centers in the world. In addition to McDonald, run by the University of Texas, there is the Harvard Sun Radio Observatory nearby and a huge radio observatory is being built near Marfa.

70.9 OFF TO THE RIGHT, there’s a good view of the farther Davis Mountains. The sharp peak in the center is Mitre Peak, El. 6100 ft., behind it on the far skyline with dip slope to the right is Mt. Ord, El. 6800 ft. south of Alpine and 40 miles from here as the crow flies.

72.0 IN THE VALLEY to the right are the Eppenauer horse training barns and amazingly enough, a race track. Formerly used to train race horses. We understand that training at this elevation enabled them to do pretty well in Mexico City.

73.3 ROADSIDE PARK.

73.8 HIGHWAY Y., Mt. Locke and McDonald Observatory to the left. Well worth a trip. Conducted tours are run throughout the day and they’re very interesting. Visitors can look through the telescope on the last Wednesday night of each month. Write ahead with stamped return envelope for tickets as only a limited number of people can be accommodated.

74.1 ROADSIDE PARK to the right.

80.0 U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY stream-flow measuring station on the right. You are now in Limpia Canyon and will go down it all the way to the edge of Ft. Davis. Up to 25 years ago, no sheep or goats could be raised in this area. Too many mountain lions. Some still here.

81.1 ROADSIDE PARK LEFT.

82.9 ROADSIDE PARK RIGHT.

83.3 PRUDE RANCH on the left. In the summer this place fills up with boys and girls. Swimming, camping, hiking, riding, rodeoing, and of course, much eating.

83.5 ROADSIDE PARK right.

85.2 ENTRANCE to Davis Mountain State Park and Indian Lodge. Be sure to visit it. Great view from the skyline drive. Picnic and camping areas can handle around 500 people. The Indian Lodge was originally built in the depression by CCC boys, now enlarged and completely renewed. 39 splendid rooms, swimming pool, fine dining room. A million dollars was recently spent improving the park and lodge. Add 2.4 miles to the log for the round trip to the lodge.

86.2 ROADSIDE PARK RIGHT.

87.7 ROADSIDE PARK RIGHT with the ruins of the old fort well and pump house used 1867 to 1891. Antonio de Espejo camped on this spot August 13, 1583 on his way back to Mexico from an unsuccessful rescue expedition into New Mexico.

87.9 JUNCTION OF 118 with Hwy. 17. We keep to right.

88.4 ENTRANCE to Fort Davis National Historic Site. This is a must. Open 8 to 5:30. Best preserved and best restored of the old Indian Forts.

89.2 LEONARD RINEHART’S Observatory Gulf station on the right in the center of town. Leonard helped make these logs possible. He has full information on the area.

89.3 HWY. 17 to Marfa goes to right, we go left.

90.4 FOR A RANCHHOUSE with a view, look up at Clay Espy’s home on the mountain top.

93.5 CAMP MUSQUIZ, run by the Westons on the right. It fills up with boys in the summer and has all facilities. You are now headed down into Musquiz Canyon.

95.6 HISTORICAL MONUMENT on right and ruins on left. This is the ranch home of Manuel Musquiz who settled here in 1854 and was run out by the Indians. Occupied as a ranger station 1880 to 1882.

95.7 ROADSIDE PARK LEFT.

102.0 COMING OUT OF MUSQUIZ CANYON. There are some beautiful watered canyons in that escarpment. The Girl Scout Camp is in a canyon opposite the foot of Mitre Peak on your right.

113.0 STARNS FIELD, Alpine’s airport, to the right.

113.3 CROSS THE SANTA FE RR. It goes on down to Chihuahua and on to the Pacific at Topolobampo. This is the shortest rail route between Kansas City and the West Coast. Check the Big Bend Travel Service at Marfa about the passenger trains on this route. Breathtaking scenery, 72 tunnels, canyons larger than the Grand Canyon. Pullman cars and less than 24 hours to the Pacific. Remarkably inexpensive.

114.2 THE GROUP of towers high on the hill to the left are as high as an 8 story building. They hold the head-end antenna for Alpine’s TV Cable Co., 4 channels of TV.

113.0 SIGNAL LIGHT in Alpine, El. 4485 ft. Pop. 5,200. Largest town in the largest county in the largest unfrozen state in the U.S. Red Patillo’s Gulf Servicenter is one block to your right. Al Vega’s Sul Ross Gulf Station is a few blocks to to your left. They both helped make these logs possible and they have Newell - Gulf Road Logs on all highways leading out of Alpine. They can also give you full information about the town and the area. I like to put these logs out but we have trouble letting people know they’re available. Will you please help spread the word? They cover all main roads west of the Pecos.

GET YOUR NEXT FREE NEWELL - GULF ROAD LOG AT ANY GULF STATION

Copyright © W. J. Newell, 1968