Pioneer Stagecoach Stand Operators Mr. and Mrs. Isaac J. Rude

The town that grew beside the stand outlasted both the stages and the fort. After the army left for good on June 30, 1886, and the Texas and Pacific and the Southern Pacific both passed it by, Fort Stockton went into a decline. It recovered as the center of a broad sheep and cattle ranching country, and irrigated farmland in the area, 7,000 acres in 1877, reached 12,900 acres by 1945. The opening of the Yates oilfield in 1926 brought a boom, and by 1980 Fort Stockton had a broad economy and 8,868 people.

What the plaque says

Pioneer Stagecoach Stand Operators Mr. and Mrs. Isaac J. Rude On way to California from Tennessee in the 1850's Isaac J. and Sarah Isabella Rude settled in West Texas. In Davis Mountains, Rude built and operated a station for the Butterfield Overland Stage; here passengers had meals while mules were unharnessed and exchanged for a fresh team. Soon Butterfield--the pioneer passenger and mail service (1858-1861) from St. Louis to California--had Rude move here to Ft. Stockton and build another stand. In 1859, when a stop was added at Leon water hole, 5 miles west of Ft. Stockton, Rude built and ran the stand there. Food there was best on the route, said a journalist. Sarah Rude (1834-1916) carried a pistol under her apron, to protect her children. When Indians attacked the Davis Mountains stand, the men loaded guns and handed them to Mrs. Rude--a calm, sure marksman. Just over 5 ft. tall, she butchered and skinned beeves to feed her family, when her husband was away. After stages stopped operating in 1861, Isaac Rude, like others associated with the Overland Mail, joined the Confederate army. Later he became a prosperous businessman in McKinney. Born in 1829, he died in 1902. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Annie Riggs Memorial Museum — 8.3 mi
  An 1899 adobe hotel on Main Street that a twice-married frontier woman bought with her gunfighter husband's estate and ran as a boarding house until she died in 1931.
• Comanche Springs — 8.3 mi
  Once the sixth largest spring in Texas and a campground on the Comanche Trail to Mexico, pumped dry by 1961 under the rule of capture and now flowing again some winters.
• Historic Fort Stockton — 8.4 mi
  The Ninth Cavalry's post at Comanche Springs from 1867 to 1886, with its 1868 stone guardhouse, three adobe officers' quarters and barracks rebuilt from the original plans.

More markers nearby

• First Telephone Exchange — 7.9 mi
• Fort Stockton, C.S.A. — 8.2 mi
• Oil and Gas Industry in Pecos County — 8.2 mi
• Site of Fort Stockton — 8.3 mi