Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Water Valley and Shelving Rock Spring
December 26, 2002

Just one hour’s drive from Midland on the way to San Angelo is a wonderful county park on the banks of the North Concho River south of Water Valley on FM 2034. I have visited those twenty acres many times to enjoy the shade of its giant native pecan trees. Tables and “facilities” encourage visitors to bring a picnic lunch, and a person can spread out some old blankets on the mowed grass for a good mid-afternoon snooze. On the west side of the bridge is a deep swimming hole of which visitors often take advantage. There is also several hundred feet of shallow water, just right for little kids to wade.

Families with kids should also take some sort of fish net – even one of those little green aquarium nets. Bizarre creatures await, such as the transparent glass prawns – tiny freshwater shrimp whose innards are perfectly visible. Dozens of Blanchard’s cricket frogs skitter at the approach of splashing feet, disappearing into the vegetation along water’s edge. Kids I have met there have a vulgar name for the tiny frogs – “snotwads.” Several species of fish, such as young bluegill, baby catfish, and several species of “shiners” (minnows) end up in the nets if a child fisherman is patient and observant.

I am not sure where Ranger Spring is located. In several old articles in historical publications I have found mention of the spring as being at Water Valley. In one story Rangers under Buck Barry’s command saved some buffalo hunters. Ten hide hunters had been camped at Big Spring in 1873, but a band of Apaches snuck up and made off with their horses. The Indians then laid siege, but two of the hunters snuck out at night and made their way south. They got within three miles of the Ranger camp before the Apaches caught up. The two “forted up,” rolling big rocks around a small depression at the edge of the divide to the north of the river. The breastworks are reputedly still in place on the private land of the old “U” ranch. Barry and his men saved the hunters in the nick of time in classic Hollywood fashion.

Along the walls of the mesas to the south of the river early settlers found an Indian burial site. With the Indian were several pieces of jewelry encrusted with precious stones and a silver goblet with the mark of its English maker dated 1830. In a 1925 Frontier Times the author reported that a resident of Sterling City still retained possession of these artifacts, but I do not know if their whereabouts are still known.

FM 2034 dead-ends about ten miles south of Water Valley. Several big ranches extend south on towards Mertzon. There are two commonly heard explanations for dead ended paved roads in west Texas. Both are tinged with envy and cynicism; a landowner just did not want a public road crossing his land, or a landowner was once a county commissioner who was able to hornswoggle the state into building an all weather road.

On private land to the south of Water Valley on the Turner ranch two monuments grace Mt. McLaughlin. Whoever McLaughlin was, Indians killed him at the base of the mountain. Supposedly he was a captain, but captain of what is unknown – he definitely was not ever based at Fort Concho. One monument was erected by the Turner family on

April 21, 1902 in honor of Captain Turner, a retired British Naval officer who settled the ranch. He afterwards returned to England, but his descendants still own the land.

The other monument was erected May 11th, 1918, in honor of the men from Water Valley and the surrounding area that served overseas in World War I. It is made of native rock mortared together and topped with a concrete cross inscribed with the words “United we stand, Divided we fall.”

To the north FM 2034 meets up with the highway between Sterling City and Robert Lee. In December of 2002 the southern five miles were badly torn up because TxDot was resurfacing the road. For about half of its length the road is on top of the divide between the Colorado and Concho Rivers. This highcountry is mostly ranch land, covered with cedar and large junipers, with a few draws filled with hackberry and flameleaf sumac. Deer blinds poking up over the vegetation attests to the area’s main source of income. Dean Flatt, who kindly shared an ancestor’s reminisces of early days in Comanche County, reports that some “mighty big bucks” are to be found on the divide.

About halfway across the divide a dirt road angles north to the Divide Cemetery, bordering the only plowed land visible from the paved road. About one hundred graves are in the cemetery. To the east of the cemetery a paved road leads back to the main road, and when Deborah and I were there in December thousands of wintering American robins and mountain bluebirds festooned the evergreen cedars with holiday colors. Many of the robins were also running on the ground like quail.

Where the two roads come together is an historical marker about Shelving Rock Spring, a mile to the north. It was once the main watering hole between the two rivers. For years the spring did not run, but recently the landowner removed several hundred acres of cedar and mesquite on its watershed on the divide, and it is now running again, even in our long drought.

As the road drops into the Colorado River valley it turns into a wonderful cliffside road. Texas Redbud, Mexican Buckeye, and other trees attain large sizes on that north facing slope. The view across the valley is breathtaking, with the waters of Spence Reservoir sparkling in the sun.

The ranch country of West Texas is sparsely populated. City bred writers often label it deserted and remote, subtly denigrating it as backwards and the residents as hicks that are sorely deprived by not being part of civilized life in big cities. There is a fearful tone to their comments, too, as if they are scared by the wide-open distances, not realizing that the country folk are often the most open and generous of Texans.