Site of Alamito

Davis settled here in 1870 with several Hispanic families in his employ. Against Indian attack he built a large adobe house with a corral for horses and mules attached at the back. He ran horses and cattle on the open range and kept a large peach orchard, while his workers' families raised corn, wheat and beans that Davis freighted to Fort Stockton for sale. Alamito had a post office from 1884 to 1892 and a school by 1908, when Selena Hord taught; in 1911 its precinct counted fifty-seven students among 392 residents.

What the plaque says

Site of Alamito Alamito Creek has been a passageway and the scene of human activity since prehistoric times. Spanish explorers began traveling through the region in 1535. Mexican families began to settle in the area about 1715 and established rancheros despite an Apache presence. Beginning in the 1850s, the infamous Chihuahua Trail, a route for heavy freight wagons from San Antonio to Chihuahua, Mexico, passed near Alamito. By 1870 Alamito was a community with several families farming and working on nearby ranches. John Davis, a pioneer from North Carolina, was a strong community leader. He married Francisca Herrera, the daughter of Carlos Herrera, one of the first Spanish settlers of Alamito, in 1875. They built a home with a chapel, one-room school, and a canal for crop irrigation. Davis was known for serving peach brandy to weary travelers who came through on the Chihuahua Trail. Francisca died in 1892 and was buried near the chapel in Alamito. The grief-stricken Davis went back to North Carolina and never returned to this area. The legendary railroad known as the "Road to Topolabampo" was the result of a longtime dream of A. E. Stilwell, railroad builder and urban promoter, for a rail line from Kansas City to Mexico's west coast. It passed through Alamito in 1930. The Railroad dug a deep well, constructed a tank to water the steam engines, built a section house for workers, and renamed the site Plata. At the end of the 20th century, only ruins of the Davis-Herrera home, school, cemetery and canal remain. Ruts of the Chihuahua Trail can still be seen in the bedrock north of Alamito. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Leaton State Historic Site — 30 mi
  The adobe trading post on the Rio Grande below Presidio, where digging has rewritten the stories told about it and a self-guided walk leads through its rebuilt rooms.

More markers nearby

• Milton Faver — 15 mi
• Milton Faver Ranches — 15 mi
• Here Milton Faver — 18 mi
• Brooks Cemetery — 18 mi