Food
Garage Coffee House
Unfortunately, this establishment has permanently closed.
B's Family Dining
Hand cut fries, a cheeseburger they build themselves, catfish in a batter they mix by hand, and deli meat sliced when you order it. Nothing here arrives frozen in a bag. Portions are West Texas sized, meaning you will not finish, and the room has the easy feel of a place that has been feeding the same families for a long time.
Tacos OJ
Everybody in town has an opinion about the best taco here, which is how you know the place is good. Fish tacos, birria, green enchiladas, burritos built like bricks. Come at breakfast for chilaquiles or, and I am serious, pancakes with green sauce. Show up before the dinner rush or you will be standing. Closed Sundays.
Culture
Historic Fort Stockton
The fort came before the town, and it came because of the water. Troops rode over from Fort Lancaster in April 1859 and set up camp right on top of Comanche Springs, because out here whoever holds the water holds everything. The Army rebuilt the place on a bigger scale in 1867, and that July the 9th Cavalry rode in, the Buffalo Soldiers. Walk the officers’ quarters and the guardhouse today and you are walking the reason this town exists.
Annie Riggs Memorial Museum
Here is a woman who deserves more than a plaque. The building went up in 1899 as the Koehler Hotel, and Annie Frazier Johnson Riggs bought it in 1904. Her husband had been shot dead in a gunfight, which in most tellings is where the story ends. Not hers. She ran this place as a boarding house until she died in 1931, and today it is the county museum, room after room of West Texas laid out around an adobe courtyard.
Paisano Pete
Every Texas town has a mascot. Fort Stockton went eleven feet tall and twenty two feet long. Paisano Pete has been standing at Main and Dickinson since 1980, and for thirteen years running he was the biggest roadrunner on the planet, until Las Cruces went and built a bigger one. Pete does not seem bothered. Neither should you.
Historic Old Pecos Jail
Built in 1883 and enlarged in 1913, and the original nineteenth century holding cell is still in there. What makes this stop worth your time is who worked the desk. Sheriff A.J. Royal ran this county until he was assassinated at the courthouse in 1894, and more than a century later nobody has ever been charged. The jail lays out the whole story and lets you draw your own conclusion.
Ste. Genevieve Winery
Sadly, since filming, Ste. Genevieve permanently closed.
Outdoors
Comanche Springs Pool
This is the saddest stop in town and you should still make it. Comanche Springs was one of the largest sources of spring water in Texas, the reason the trail ran through here, the reason the Army built a fort, the reason there is a Fort Stockton at all. Then a 1954 court ruling upheld the rule of capture, the farmers pumped, and by the late 1950s the springs were dry. The pool is still here. The water is not.
James Rooney Memorial Park
This is the park a town builds when it wants its kids to stay. Two playgrounds, four ball diamonds, tennis and pickleball courts, a disc golf course, and pavilions with grills already bolted down. It has been here since 1975. Walk a lap, let everybody run, and remember that West Texas heat is not a suggestion.
