Elephant Rock

  Elephant Rock

                                                                  By

                                                           Mike Capron

It is not hard to see why they call it Elephant Rock.  Elephant Rock is just off the highway from Marfa to Shafter.   Shafter is a name that I have wondered about a long time. I had never heard of Col.Shafter but he was commander of the First Infantry Regiment at Ft. Davis.  He had a friend John W. Spence, a freighter turned prospector, who found silver ore near the present town of Shafter. Spencer showed an ore sample to Col. William R. Shafter, who had it assayed. When small amounts of profitable silver were found, Colonel Shafter interested two army friends, Lt. John L. Bullis of the Twenty-fourth Infantry and Lt. Louis Wilhelmi of the First Infantry, in a land deal on the acreage surrounding Spencer's strike. In 1883 the Presidio Mining Company was formed with these three individuals plus some others who were involved. The silver mines of Shafter became very productive for several years after. All of the investors made a lot of money during this time, but I haven’t heard the story on how they decided to name the town that was formed around the silver mine. ???????   I would guess that Col. Shafter had something to do with the naming of the town Shafter.   Cibalo Creek runs through Shafter and it is a beautiful spot for a West Texas Town.  Frank Gervasi and myself have done some paintings of the interesting buildings in Shafter. It is certainly an interesting piece of West Texas History.