Comanche Springs -- Fort Stockton
N 30° 53.116 W 102° 52.536
13R E 703072 N 3418819
Pecos County was a different place in 1940, before Clayton Williams diverted all the water from Comanche Springs for his own profit
Waymark Code: WMV1DJ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/07/2017
Views: 5
The waymark coordinates are for the entrance to Rooney Park, near the (now dry) Comanche Springs.
When the WPA visited Fort Stockton in the 1930s, Comanche Springs still flowed with 20-30 million gallons of water a day, creating a beautiful cienega and public swimming pool in this arid place.
Then in the 1950s, local rancher and businessman Clayton Williams drilled several deep water wells on his property, tapping the source of Comanche Springs, and diverted all the water. Comanche Springs, a source of water in the desert for man and beast for millennia, went dry, and with it -- the whole area changed.
The formerly-spring-fed pool the WPA writers saw still stands in Rooney park, and it still fills with water - but this water is from the Fort Stockton Municipal Water supply, not Comanche Springs.
And the lush irrigated fields the writers saw -- farms of melons, fruits, and vegetables -- all gone because of one man who wanted all the water for himself and his purposes. See: (
visit link)
In 2016, and for the last 5 decades, Comanche Springs are as dry as the rest of this part of Texas.
From Texas: A Guide to the Lone Star State
"Fort Stockton is a retail center and livestock shipping point. It grew up around a military post established in 1859 near Comanche Springs, a watering place for Indians on forays into Mexico. Past the spring ran the Camino Real, the California Trail of 1849-50, and the San Antonio- San Diego Stage Line route. Today the water from this great spring, which flows more than 30 million gallons daily, irrigates 6,500 acres north of the town. lands, melons, fruits and vegetables are raised."