Pinery Station, Historic stage station ruins in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas
Pinery Station is a stagecoach stop ruin located in the Guadalupe Mountains. The remains show stone walls forming multiple rooms and service areas where travelers rested their horses and spent the night during their long western journey.
The station was built in 1858 to serve the Butterfield Overland Mail route connecting St. Louis to San Francisco. It was one of many stops that helped mail and passengers cross the continent during that era.
The station reveals how travelers, drivers, and workers shared this remote outpost in daily operations. The sturdy stone design shows how people adapted to working in a harsh desert environment where danger was always present.
This site is reached by a paved trail from Pine Springs Visitor Center that is about a mile long and easy to walk. The trail is well-marked and shaded in parts, making it accessible for most visitors of varying abilities.
The ruins sit at a high elevation in a mountain pass where visibility stretches for miles across the desert. This makes it one of the few visible reminders along the original mail route that you can see from several directions at once.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
