Site of Comanche Springs

In 1868 Peter Gallagher bought the land that held the military garrison and Comanche Springs, platted 160 acres for a townsite he named Saint Gall and opened two stores there; he and John James later bought 5,500 acres along Comanche Creek. By 1870 the Saint Gall area had 420 civilians, mostly Irish, German and Mexican Catholics who had come by way of San Antonio, and its first church was Catholic. One of the first modern attempts at irrigation farming in Texas was made nearby in the 1870s.

What the plaque says

Site of Comanche Springs Used as a watering place and camping ground by Indians since Pre-Columbian times, the Springs were possibly visited about 1536 by Spaniard Cabeza de Vaca on his wanderings through Texas. The expedition of Juan de Mendoza, with his party of Spaniards and Jumano Indians, camped near the waters in 1684. The six major, gushing springs and the beautiful river they formed resulted from water seeping up through geological faults to the earth's surface. The reservoir which supplied them was located in the formation known as "Trinity Sand." The Springs, among the largest in all Texas, were one of the few good watering places in this arid region. They supplied Indians raiding into Mexico on the nearby Comanche war trail and also gold seekers traveling to California on the southern route, 1849 and later. Butterfield Overland Mail stage stopped here as well, and after 1859 the Springs provided water for Fort Stockton, which was founded both to protect the mail and stop the Comanche raids. The Springs began to be tapped for irrigation as early as 1875, but today irrigation projects to the north and west have reduced the underground water supply so much that the Springs no longer flow. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Historic Fort Stockton — steps away
  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.
• Annie Riggs Memorial Museum — 0.2 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 — 0.3 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.

More markers nearby

• O. W. Williams — steps away
• Hovey School — steps away
• Site of Fort Stockton — 0.3 mi
• Fort Stockton, C.S.A. — 0.3 mi