Near sundown in May of this year, my daughter Karen and her son Nathaniel, and I were messing around photographing the remarkable scenes that we could see in every direction in the first pull-off on the Green Gulch Road in Big Bend National Park. From this vantage point, Panther Peak, Lost Mine Peaks, Casa Grande and Pulliam Peak of the Chisos Mountains to the south of us were just magnificent in their shadows, highlights and mystery. Several of my recent oil paintings got their start from these few minutes there as the setting sun did its magic. I happened to turn and look behind me to the north and there was this scene of the rays from the setting sun topping the Grapevine Hills and further on the tops of the undulating ranges of mountains fading into the distance.

Several hundred yards down the Green Gulch Road is the red stop sign at the intersection with the main park road. This sign jolts me back to the history of all of those people in the past that have seen these very same scenes that we today are enjoying so much. The modern day asphalt road at that stop sign follows the old Comanche trail made by countless raiding parties coming down from the high plains of the Texas Panhandle and the surrounding states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. These Comanche Indian warriors wanted horses and captives for slaves. Nowadays, when we are trying to understand the latest political scandal or the behavior of someone, we often hear the phase “Follow the money”. That phase also helps to understand why that old Comanche trail was there and how this old trail in the west Texas desert helped shape the world as we know it today.. Without getting into a lot of dates, names and places, the story is as follows.

Several centuries ago, Spanish adventurers and fortune hunters made expeditions into the southwestern part of the current boundaries of present-day The United States. Some of their horses escaped and became the ancestors of the wild mustangs. Some Indians on the high plains, the Comanche Indians, captured some of these horses and became some of the best light cavalry the world has ever known. They quickly conquered the plains areas of eastern New Mexico and Colorado, northern Texas, western Oklahoma and southern Kansas.

They began raiding the areas of New Mexico controlled by Spain. One of the governors of New Mexico got fed up with these raids and put together a large army and defeated the Comanche tribes. Then he did something that changed the course of history. He made a deal with them. The deal was that if they would quit raiding into New Mexico, he would send traders into their territory to sell to them all the things they needed such as metal knives, cooking pots, jewelry, metal for arrow and spear points, axe blades, blankets, guns and ammunition and whiskey. These Mexican traders came to be known as the Comancheros. The Comancheros wanted to trade their goods to the Comanches for their horses, mules and cattle. The Comancheros then took these animals back to New Mexico and sold them for cash.

For a century or two, the best place for the Comanche Indians to get large numbers of horses and mules was down in Old Mexico. Over time they developed two basic trails from their villages up on the high plains down into Old Mexico. The eastern trail came of the high plains into the Texas hill country and then followed along the Nueces River. The trail then went to the San Felipe springs where present day Del Rio is located to cross the Rio Grande River.

The impassably high canyon walls along the Pecos and Devils Rivers in West Texas affected the location of all of the early-day trails and roads in West Texas. So at that time the first ford across the Pecos River and above the mouth of the Devils River was at the Horses Head crossing where the present-day town of Iraan is located. The Comanche trails came down from all over the highs plains to this ford to cross over the Pecos River. From here their trail went due west, which present day I. H. 10 follows, to Comanche Springs where present day Fort Stockton is located.

At Comanche Springs their trail turned south. Present day highway U.S. 385 follows that old trail all the way to where Karen, Nathaniel and I were standing that late afternoon. It then goes on west from where we were to the western side of the Chisos Mountains and then turns south again to go down to a ford over the Rio Grande River where the tiny village of Castolon is now located.

Those young Comanche Indian raiders would leave their villages up on the high plains with nothing more than a horse, the clothes on their back, a lance, a shield, bow and arrows, a knife and a blanket. They would be gone for up to two years. Some were killed and never came back, however those that did come back generally had large herds of horses and mules and were rich. They could now buy girls for wives and buy whatever they wanted from the Comancheros.

Later when the Mexican people got their independence from Spain, they adopted a policy to encourage Americans from the United States to settle in Texas to provide a buffer between the Comanche Indians and Old Mexico. This really just provided the Comanche Indians with a new additional source to steal from for horses and mules and they added cattle to their list for trading with the Comancheros. These settlers revolted against the Mexican government and got their independence. Then the United States adopted the new republic as a state which caused a war with Mexico.

Within the treaty to end this war, the US agreed to buy the present day land of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado and Nevada shaping the present day boundaries of the U. S. Also the U.S. agreed to keep the Comanche Indians and the other savage Indians within the U. S. from raiding into Old Mexico. However, for the next thirty years after the war, the U. S. could not control the Comanche Indians and they continued to use that old trail that was down there where that stop sign is at the intersection of the Green Gulch Road and the main park road for their raids into Old Mexico.

I am sure that very few people today that go through that intersection have any idea of what used to be there. I hope you like this painting titled Grapevine Hills, for it is one of my favorites.

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