August Fransal

Fransal's captain, George Wythe Baylor, came to the border in style. Named to replace Lt. John B. Tays at the head of a Ranger company in El Paso, he left San Antonio on August 2, 1879, with his wife, two young daughters and a sister-in-law in an ambulance, two wagons carrying a piano, a game cock and four hens, and an escort of six Rangers under Sgt. James B. Gillett. The trip to Ysleta took forty-two days. Walter Prescott Webb later judged Baylor a brave fighter but a poor disciplinarian and an indifferent judge of men.

What the plaque says

August Fransal One of the many fearless stage drivers who traveled on the Ben Ficklin Overland Mail Line from San Antonio to El Paso. On this dangerous route, threatened by wild Apaches, Fransal regularly drove his mule-drawn stage. He served as a Texas Ranger 1881-1882 and in 1883 under Capt. George W. Baylor. He was also a teamster at Fort Davis. Later he was a hunter, selling fresh game (a welcome substitute for dried, cured meat) in El Paso. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hudspeth County Courthouse — 0.4 mi
  The only courthouse in Texas built entirely of adobe, in the Sierra Blanca railroad town where Southern Pacific and Texas and Pacific crews met in 1881.

More markers nearby

• Fort Quitman, C.S.A. — 0.4 mi
• Hudspeth County — 0.6 mi
• America's Second Transcontinental Railroad — 0.6 mi
• The Killing of General J. J. Byrne — 0.6 mi