Lee and Karen Duquette,
The Two RV Gypsies
in Fort Stockton,Texas
September 15, 2022

Fort Stockton is a city in and the county seat of Pecos County, Texas. It is located 329 miles northwest of San Antonio and 240 miles southeast of El Paso. Fort Stockton is 100 miles southwest of Midland International Airport. The town is within driving distance of the Big Bend country, including Big Bend National Park, 137 miles, and the Big Bend Ranch State Park, 171 miles, as well as the scenery of numerous day-drive locations in the area.

Paisano Pete was purchased from a Wisconsin company for $6,250. The fiberglass statue was perched in the center of town at the corner of Main Street and Dickinson Boulevard. The city then held a “Name the Roadrunner” contest offering $50 to the best suggestion, and after fielding a number of suggestions, Paisano Pete was the winner.

Unfortunately, in 1993, Pete lost his world’s largest title to an enormous statue in Las Cruces, New Mexico which is 20-feet tall and 40-feet long, but this has not dimmed his appeal, nor stopped him from becoming Fort Stockton’s most photographed resident. (The two RV Gypsies have also seen the New Mexico giant roadrunner and he can be seen from this link - but be sure to return here to finish this page.)

Below: The Fort Stockton Visitor Center is the starting place to explore the historical sites of Fort Stockton. It houses information regarding Fort Stockton, local sites, and other tourism destinations including the self-guided historic driving tour. Outside features a beautiful pond, silhouettes, a train car, a pump jack, and other exhibits that symbolize Fort Stockton. It is located in the original Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railroad Depot constructed in 1911. Unfortunately, it was closed when the two RV Gypsies got here, so they were unable to go inside. But they did explore the grounds.

Below: Roadrunners etched in the door at the closed visitor center.

Below: The USA flag and the Texas flag

Below: The USA flag and the Texas flag, and an oil well at the Visitor Center, as photographed from different angles.

Below: Lee Duquette liked the big Texas star embedded in the ground.

Below:
Fort Lancaster sent 1st Infantry Co. H to take post along Comanche Springs on 12 April 1859. Fort Stockton (named Camp Stockton until 1860) grew up around Comanche Springs, one of the largest sources of spring water in Texas. The fort was named for First Lieutenant Edward Dorsey Stockton of the US 1st infantry, who died in San Antonio on March 13, 1857. Comanche Springs was a favorite rest stop on the Great Comanche Trail to Chihuahua, San Antonio-El Paso Road, and the Butterfield Overland Mail route. On October 2, 1859, the well-known journalist and author (and future Union spy) Albert D. Richardson passed through Camp Stockton, which he described as "a military post of three or four edifices with pearly, misty mountains in the background."

For more history, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Stockton,_Texas - but be sure to return here for the rest of this page.

Below: Various silhouettes representing a Commanche hunting party at Comanche Springs as described above.

Below: Downtown Fort Stockton, Texas

Below: The F. J. Ellyson Scout Building Troop 54 BSA mural is adorned with a soft colored mural depicting local history with the desert landscape as the setting.

Continue on as The two RV Gypsies drive through New Mexico in 2022

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