submitted by Virginia Stanbrough

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Claims to the name

The main party, with the mule trains, under Colonel Craig's escort, got to their respective posts on the 9th and 10th of December; though the Commissioner himself with a few companions got into El Paso about the middle of November, they took the route up the Pecos, leaving it at the horsehead crossing. Daily National Intelligencer, (Washington, DC) Friday, February 07, 1851; Issue 11,837; col E From El Paso and the Upper Rio Grande

Abounds in the country along the upper Pecos above the road from Fort Concho to Fort Stockton, Near the Horse Head crossing of the Pecos are large deposits of salt in the bed of what is called Salt Lake. To this place wagons resort for supplies of salt for El Paso. Presidio and other counties By Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas, Samuel Botsford Buckley, Jules Marcou, Memphis, El Paso & Pacific RailroadPublished by A. C. Gray, state printer, 1874

Horsehead Crossing was named by General Pope. There is a difference of opinion as to the origin of the name, some contending that it was due to the meanderings of the river, forming a horse's head, and others that the surveying party was surprised by Indians and lost their stock. source: Reed Anthony, Cowman: An Autobiography By Andy Adams, Houghton Mifflin Company, Riverside Press Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1907

. Captain Irby, his two brothers, William and Charles, and nine other companions, with three four-mule teams, began this long journey of thirteen months' duration.The route taken by Captain Irby led them via the old San Saba mission, the head of Devil's river, across the Pecos at Horsehead crossing (so named by them because of a horse's head found there), through Fort Stockton to El Paso. Passing over one corner of New Mexico, they entered Arizona. Then traveling northwest, they  crossed the Gila river, through Arizona over the Colorado river, into California. There they headed for Stockton, their destination. By Mrs. Alfred Irby "Pathfinder's of '49." The Overland monthly Published by Samuel Carson, 1917