Grierson Spring

The springs once flowed strongly in southwestern Reagan County, and Spaniards probably found them in January 1684, when Juan Dominguez de Mendoza's expedition camped here for two days. Comanches camped at them too. The Butterfield route of 1858 missed the springs, running instead along Centralia Draw. Companies D, E and F of the Tenth Cavalry and Company K of both the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry served at the camp at different times. When George W. Wedemeyer stopped on May 26, 1885, he found it in ruins, and the P. H. Coates family camped here that year with seventeen wagons.

What the plaque says

Grierson Spring Established as an outpost to Fort Concho, April 30th, 1878. Stage stand on the Ft. Concho to Ft. Stockton route, 1875-1882. Named in honor of General Benjamin H. Grierson who commanded the Federal troops in the region, April 23, 1875, to July 20th, 1882. Abandoned as a military post in 1882.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Rankin Museum (Yates Hotel) — 18 mi
  The fireproof hotel Ira Yates built beside the Orient railway depot months after oil came in on his ranch in 1926, kept as it was down to the wicker lobby furniture.
• Alley Oop Park and Iraan Museum — 20 mi
  An oil-boom town named for Ira and Ann Yates, where the creator of the caveman comic Alley Oop once worked, and a park of giant cartoon figures beside the town museum.

More markers nearby

• Town of Texon — 7.5 mi
• Santa Rita No. 1 — 7.6 mi
• Martin-Castillo Expedition — 13 mi
• John H. Reagan — 13 mi