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The ruins of the Pinery, a stagecoach station, are located within Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. They sit near the Pine Springs Visitor Center and are surrounded by wonderful natural scenery.
Pinery Trail
The Pinery Trail provides access to the ruins along a 0.9 mile out and back trail from the visitor center. It should take about 20 minutes to complete, and desert plants are labeled along the path. There’s also a parking lot near the ruins for quicker access (our choice).
Monuments
Before reaching the ruins, there are two monuments that have been placed on either side of the trail. The monument to the right commemorates the Pinery and was erected by the State of Texas in 1936. The monument to the left is dedicated to airmen. It includes an inscription from a memorial plaque placed at the summit of Guadalupe Peak in 1958 by American Airlines, on the centennial of the transcontinental overland mail. It reads:
Dedicated to the airmen who, like the stage drivers before them, challenged the elements through this pass with the pioneer spirit and courage which resulted in a vast system of airline transport known as “American Airlines”
Butterfield Overland Mail
The Pinery was a stagecoach station on the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach route. The route was developed by John Butterfield (1801-1869) and was the first successful attempt linking the East and West with a reliable transportation system. Butterfield Overland Mail predated the Pony Express and Transcontinental Railroad.
The route began as part of a six-year federal mail contract that went into effect on September 16, 1858. It ran from St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, and covered over 2,700 miles. Unfortunately, it was cut short by the onset of the Civil War in March 1861.
Butterfield Overland Mail used Celerity coaches, which were built for speed. As stipulated by the contract, the route always had to be completed in 25 days. 100 Celerity coaches were built in 1857 at a cost of US$1,500 each and placed in the Butterfield Overland Mail service.
The coaches had to travel day and night and covered roughly 120 miles a day. They were pulled by six horses or mules and carried nine passengers. No valuables of any kind were allowed on the coaches, including cash, bank notes, or jewelry, for safety purposes.
The Pinery
The Pinery, or Pinery Station, was built in 1858 at a location that had originally been a camp for military expeditions since 1849. It was first used in September of that year as a relay station along the route. Stations were placed about 20 miles apart along the entire route.
The Pinery was built behind fortified stone walls, containing a corral and a three-room station house. The walls were 30 inches thick to provide protection from raids by local Mescalero Apaches.
The Pinery offered hot meals for stage crews and passengers as well as a fresh team of horses for the coaches. It was abandoned in August 1859 after only a year in use, when the trail route was changed to pass closer to Fort Davis and Fort Stockton. After that, it was still used for protection by other passers-by, including soldiers, freighters, outlaws, and emigrants.
