Here crossed the undated Comanche Trail from Llano Estacado to Mexico. In 1850 John R. Bartlett while surveying the Mexican boundary found the crossing marked by skulls of horses; hence the name "Horse Head". The Southern Overland Mail (Butterfield) route, St. Louis to San Francisco, 1858-1861, and the road west from Fort Concho crossed here. The Goodnight-Loving trail, established in 1866 and trod by tens of thousands of Texas longhorns, came here and turned up the east bank of the Pecos for Fort Summer and into Colorado Erected by the State of Texas 1936