Pecos, the second-largest county in Texas (4,764 square miles), is marked by mesas and arroyos. Fort Stockton was the first Anglo-America settlement in the county, a U.S. Army outpost established in 1859 at what was called Comanche Springs, a watering hole (described by U.S. Army surveyors in 1856 as coming up from the earth “like a sea monster”) used by the Comanche on their forays to and from northern Mexico.
In 1868, Peter Gallagher, an Irish-born stonemason and former Texas Ranger, purchased 160 acres of land around Comanche Springs and platted a town named Saint Gall, which grew as a center for supplying Fort Stockton. The Texas legislature organized Pecos County in 1875, with Saint Gall as the county seat; the town was renamed Fort Stockton in 1881. An economic slump followed closure of the fort in 1886, but the town rebounded as sheep and cattle ranches and irrigated farming were established. An agricultural boom followed construction of the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway through the county in 1913. Intense pumping of well water to support farming began to affect the aquifer in the 1940s, and Comanche Springs dried up in 1961. The Yates oilfield in 1926 spurred economic development, and Fort Stockton’s economy continues to be based on oil production, agriculture, ranching, services for motorists and truckers driving through on I-10, and as the northern gateway to Big Bend country.
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