Water Mill -- Bud Matthews Switch, TX - Windmills on Waymarking.com

Bud Matthews Switch is a nice little historical area to stop into during a long monotonous drive in the plains of West Texas.

The Butterfield Overland Mail passenger and mail service stagecoaches passed through here starting in the late 1850s until operations ceased at the beginning of the Civil War. The route of the Texas Central railroad followed much of the old Butterfield trail route.

For more on the Butterfield Overland Mail, see here: (visit link)

A railroad switch was installed here at Bud Matthews Ranch on the Texas Central railroad in 1900 to load cattle from many local ranches.

Next to follow the old mail route is the US 180, which survives today as a major arterial connecting towns throughout west Texas.

The cattle rail-shipping point at Bud Matthews Switch operated until 1967. Today, cattle are still loaded here at the historic cattle chute at Bud Matthews, but they are loaded onto trucks, not train cars.

The windmill dates from the earliest years of operations here and probably quit operating in the 1970s. In this hot and arid climate, cattle needed water to survive. Therefore, the windmill was installed. It pumped cool well water to a small stock tank that has now been removed for use elsewhere.

Date of Manufacture: 01/01/1900 Purpose: Water Pumping Open to the public: yes Is This Windmill Functional?: No Windmill Farm: no Cost: 0.00 (listed in local currency) Museum on Site: yes

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/22/2022 WalksfarTX visited it 08/18/2021 Love Cachers visited it 07/14/2013 Benchmark Blasterz visited it

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