This is a roadside picnic area with accessible picnic tables. Walk the fenceline checking the habitat on the other side. Be sure to check out the large-ish trees, a rarity in West Texas.

Scaled Quail. Ash-throated and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Western Kingbird, Bell's Vireo and Lark Sparrow are all found in the summer as well as Orchard and Bullock's Orioles.

The historic marker reads:

Horseshoe Crossing, C.S.A.

One of the most important sites in the Old West. Named for skulls pointing toward crossing. Only ford for many miles where animals could enter, drink and leave Pecos River safely. Elsewhere deep banks would trap them. Ford mapped in 1849 by Capt. R.B. Marcy, head of Army escort for parties on way to California gold rush. Used in 1850's contractor for first mail route from San Antonio to El Paso. As change station, echoed with brass bugle call of Butterfield coach carrying mail from St. Louis to San Francisco, in first stage service to span continent, 1858-1861. 

During the Civil War, 1861-1865, used by wagons hauling highly valuable salt scooped from bed of nearby Juan Cordona Lake to meet Texas scarcities. Also scene of spying and counterspying of Federal and Confederates watching Overland Trail. Federal, operating out of El Paso, feared invasion by way of Horsehead. Confederates several times threw back armies that sought to enter the state in order to deploy along the old Overland Trail and conquer north and west Texas. 

Later this became important crossing for cattle on Goodnight-Loving trail, mapped in 1866.

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