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Pope's Crossing is on the Pecos River and
the Loving-Reeves county line one mile south of the Texas-New Mexico
boundary. When the Pecos was a formidable watercourse the crossing was
used by travelers to ford the river. Spanish explorers established a
trail through the southwestern corner of what is now Loving County
along the east bank of the Pecos and crossed the river at the point
later called Pope's Crossing. Gold-seekers headed for California used
the crossing in the late 1840s. On March 8, 1854, Capt. John Popeqv
arrived at the Pecos River on a survey expedition to find the best
railroad route to the Pacific. He forded the river at its least
threatening point, the crossing earlier used by the Spanish and the
emigrants. That crossing was eighty feet wide and 2 ½ feet deep and
was later named for Pope. In 1855 Pope established Pope's Campqv
three miles downriver from the crossing and drilled unsuccessfully for
artesian water wells. After the drilling project was abandoned in
1858, the route of the Butterfield Overland Mailqv
was laid out through the future Loving County. The stage used the road
and camp built by Pope and forded the Pecos at Pope's Crossing. In
1936 Red Bluff Dam and Reservoirqv
were completed on the Pecos between the southern edge of New Mexico
and five miles north of Orla, Texas. Pope's Crossing was inundated.
The crossing had a rocky bed and was surrounded by light sand and
gravel when Pope found it. He reported the area vegetation as mesquite
bushes and abundant grama grasses. Current area topography is flat to
rolling with locally steep slopes of windblown sand, alluvial
material, and calichified bedrock. Vegetation consists primarily of
sparse grasses, cacti, creosote bush, and scrub brush.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Robert W. Dunn,
The History of Loving County, Texas (M.A. thesis, University of Texas,
1948; condensed in West Texas Historical Association Year Book
24 [1948]). Grace Thormann King, "Captain John Pope, First
Driller in the Permian Basin," Texas Permian Historical Annual
2 (1962). Sue Navarro, "Four Square Miles Per Man, Loving County,
Texas," Texas Permian Historical Annual 4 (1964). Waterman
L. Ormsby, The Butterfield Overland Mail (San Marino,
California: Huntington Library, 1942; rpt. 1955). Jesse Wallace
Williams, Old Texas Trails (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1979).
Julia Cauble Smith
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