US-90 Across the Lower Pecos: Del Rio to Sanderson
About 120 miles on US-90 from Del Rio across Amistad Reservoir, past Comstock and Seminole Canyon, over the Pecos River to Langtry, and on by Dryden to Sanderson.
The Route at a Glance
West of Del Rio, US-90 runs beside the Southern Pacific's Sunset Route across the canyon country where the Devils and Pecos rivers reach the Rio Grande. Crews building from east and west met in January 1883, and on January 12 Thomas W. Peirce drove a silver spike just west of the Pecos to mark a new transcontinental route across Texas. This drive follows the highway about 120 miles, two and a quarter hours without stops, from Del Rio to Sanderson. Del Rio & the Lower Pecos Canyonlands covers the country around it.
In Del Rio, the Whitehead Memorial Museum sits on an irrigation canal fed by San Felipe Creek, and Val Verde Winery dates from 1883. Northwest of town the highway crosses arms of Amistad Reservoir, whose visitor center stands on US-90. Comstock, a railroad station named for a dispatcher, was the railhead for the Deaton stage line, which ran six-horse coaches to Ozona from 1888 to 1910, and it is home to Shumla, which records the painted murals of the canyonlands.
West of Comstock, Seminole Canyon State Park shows its painted shelter only on ranger-led tours; the paintings are fragile, so look and never touch. The highway crosses the Pecos on a bridge opened in 1957, high above the gorge, and the overlook at its northeast end looks down on the water. The railroad's crossing is upstream, out of sight. Before 1892 trains reached the river by a loop line along the Rio Grande, and Vinegarroon, the construction camp where Roy Bean was made justice of the peace in 1882, stood near its mouth.
Langtry lies on Loop 25 just off the highway. The Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center there is under construction: the Jersey Lilly saloon, the opera house and the gardens are closed for now, while the lobby and restrooms stay open daily from 8 to 5. West of Langtry the road runs on past Pumpville, where the railroad drilled wells in 1887, and Dryden, named in 1882 for the line's chief engineer. Sanderson, a Southern Pacific division point and since 1905 the seat of Terrell County, lies in Sanderson Canyon, where a flash flood on June 11, 1965 killed twenty-six people.
The Drive, Stop by Stop
8 stops along the route, in driving order from Del Rio, Texas to Sanderson, Texas.
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That's the drive. Take your time, pull over often, and let US-90 Across the Lower Pecos: Del Rio to Sanderson do what it does best.
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