Born in Kentucky, Henry Skillman came to Texas before 1846 and served as a U.S. Army scout in the Mexican War. He established the first mail service from San Antonio to El Paso in 1851 and in 1858 drove the first Butterfield Overland mail coach through dangerous Comanche Indian territory from Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos to El Paso. Handling mule teams never driven before, he made the trip in four days without rest or relief, his six-foot frame in buckskins decorated with revolvers and Bowie knives, and his sandy hair and beard flowing to his waist. During the Civil War, he served as a Confederate scout. After July 1862, when Federals seized El Paso and the Davis Mountains in the longest enemy occupation in Texas, he acted as liaison and courier to the Confederate refugee colony in Juarez and moved without fear of Federal troops because he knew the country and people well. He spread false rumors of Confederates massed in remote deserts, sending enemy troops on fruitless, exhausting chases. Regarded as the most dreaded scout known to the occupation, he was singled out by the Union commander and hunted by a force commissioned to take him alive. He was killed resisting capture by Federal troops in camp at Spencer's Ranch near here on April 3, 1864.