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Beer For My Mules LbNA #50373

Owner:Adoptable
Plant date:Sep 12, 2009
Location:
City:Crane
County:Crane
State:Texas
Boxes:1
Planted by:El Lobo
Found by: Walksfar
Last found:Oct 13, 2013
Status:FFFFF
Last edited:Sep 12, 2009
In 1858 the first Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach left Missouri bound for San Francisco while another simultaneously left San Francisco bound for Missouri. The great experiment lasted roughly three years, with twice weekly stages passing each direction. Hostilities surrounding the Civil War ended it. The stretch of the “Overland Trail” through Texas was the most dangerous due to the unsubdued plains Indians, namely the Comanches of the Texas panhandle region and the Apaches further to the west. Because these Indians coveted horses highly, and yet despised mules, the Butterfield Mail coaches switched to teams of mules once inside of Texas, and then switched back to horses in the west after clearing this danger zone. The route passed just west of present day San Angelo, Texas, followed the Middle Fork of the Concho River, then Centralia Draw westward before crossing about 70 miles of waterless plains towards Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos River. The trail steered for, and passed through, Castle Gap in southern Crane County before reaching the Pecos.

This box honors those ornery yet hard working mules, and if Toby Keith and Willie Nelson had given much thought to their popular country duet they would have sung “whiskey for my men and BEER FOR MY MULES.”

DIRECTIONS

This box is located at a Roadside Park on the east side of St Hwy 385 about 9 miles south of Crane (11 miles north of McCamey) in the shadow of Castle Gap, which can be seen off to the east. It is an easy drive-by.

CLUES

To find the box stop at the southernmost table of the roadside park. Locate the southern end of the chain-link fence that comprises the east boundary of the park, and walk south from that spot, down the fenceline, for 32 steps. The box is nestled under a large rock just inside the fence next to a cedar stay.