Ruins of "The Pinery" or "Pine Spring" Stage Stand

Travelers crossing Guadalupe Pass camped at Pine Springs long before the mail: Lt. Francis T. Bryan and Capt. Randolph B. Marcy in 1849, John Russell Bartlett in 1850 and Capt. John Pope in 1854. In 1870 troops from Fort Quitman under Maj. Albert Morrow met reinforcements here to scout against the Mescaleros, marched into McKittrick Canyon and got lost. Rancher Walter Glover owned the land by 1907; in 1928, when U.S. 62 opened, he and his wife, Bertha, built the Pine Springs Cafe, which she ran until 1982.

What the plaque says

Ruins of "The Pinery" or "Pine Spring" Stage Stand Built in 1858 as a station on the Butterfield overland mail route St. Louis to San Francisco. Abandoned in 1859, when the line was shifted to the Davis Mountain route. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Pinery Butterfield Station — steps away
  The stone ruins of the highest station on the Butterfield Overland Mail, used for eleven months from 1858 until the line moved south to the forts in 1859.
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park — 0.3 mi
  The four highest peaks in Texas, Guadalupe Peak at 8,751 feet among them, on a ranch that oilmen and ranchers sold or gave to make a park in 1972.
• Frijole Ranch — 1.4 mi
  An old ranch house at a desert spring below the Guadalupe escarpment, home to the Smith family's orchard and now the park's history museum.
• McKittrick Canyon — 7.0 mi
  A spring-fed canyon of maples and oaks inside the Guadalupes, with the stone cabin an oil geologist built in 1931-32 and gave, with his land, toward the park.

More markers nearby

• Guadalupe Peak — 3.2 mi
• Guadalupe Mountains — 25 mi
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park — 27 mi
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park — 33 mi