Pumpville

The station was first called Samuels and also served as a telegraph office and crew point. In 1887 the railroad drilled wells there for its trains and renamed the place Pumpville. A westbound passenger train was robbed nearby in August 1889. Pumpville was once headquarters of D. Hart Investments, which controlled all of Block Y and the watering places on the Rio Grande and the Pecos, with 80,000 sheep and 500 horses, until Hart tried to corner the wool market in Boston. The post office ran from 1899 to 1921 and again from 1929 to 1970.

What the plaque says

Pumpville In 1882, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway created a water stop for steam engines on a new line through this area. Two and a half miles north of this site, the company built a pumphouse, depot and other facilities. A community first known as Samuels and later renamed Pumpville developed around the rail amenities. Residents worked for the rail company or area ranches, which used the stop as a way to get livestock to market. With the advent of the diesel engine, which did not require water, the railroad removed its structures, and only the ranching community remained. The townsite, which once boasted a post office, schools and general store, remains a focal point for the local population. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center — 13 mi
  The state travel center at Langtry, built around the saloon where Roy Bean held court as justice of the peace for twenty years, in a town named for a railroad foreman.
• Pecos River Overlook — 28 mi
  A roadside pullout at the east end of the US-90 bridge, looking down into the gorge that made the Pecos a barrier for travelers and a byword for the edge of the law.
• Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site — 30 mi
  The state park west of Comstock where rangers lead visitors down to Fate Bell Shelter and its Pecos River-style paintings, some three to four thousand years old.

More markers nearby

• Law West of The Pecos — 14 mi
• Langtry — 14 mi
• William H. Dodd — 14 mi
• The Torres Family — 14 mi