Once one of the largest artesian spring systems in Texas, Comanche Springs, named by early Mexican settlers, provided 60 million gallons of water per day and sustained the Comanche, Apache, Kiowa, Kickapoo, mail coaches to El Paso and San Diego, explorers, freight wagon trains to Mexico, adventurers, surveyors, rangers, cattle and horse herds, gold seekers, settlers, emigrants, outlaws, and later the United States Army. Long before the Army came to protect the road to California during the Gold Rush, the Comanche used the springs on raids into Mexico, and by the time the Army arrived the route through the area was known as the Great Comanche War Trail. In the West, where trails were laid out from water source to water source and 20 to 25 miles was a good day's travel, Comanche Springs had great strategic value in protecting West Texas and became a stopping point for early travelers and later for residents, tourists, and farmers. In 1849, a United States Army reconnaissance party led by Captain Wiam Whiting reached the springs and found the water clear, abundant in fish, and home to soft-shelled turtles, and soon afterward the Army established Fort Stockton nearby to protect travelers and mail couriers from raiding Indians. Farmers began using the water for irrigation as early as 1875, one account measured the flow in 1899 at about 500 gallons per second, and by the 1930s the springs attracted visitors to an area noted for little rainfall and few rivers; a bathhouse, swimming pool, and pavilion were built there in 1938. When the springs seemed to be drying, the city and farmers hired experts, who concluded that numerous irrigation wells drilled into the aquifer had lowered the water level and caused the springs to go dry. After negotiations failed, a lawsuit sought to stop surrounding well owners from interfering with the normal flow, and in 1954 the Texas Court of Civil Appeals ruled that the groundwater feeding Comanche Springs belonged to Clayton Williams while it remained under his land. Under this Rule of Capture, the Pecos County Water Control and Improvement District had rights only after the water emerged from the ground, while before that the defendant could make beneficial use of any amount regardless of the effect on the springs. Today the springs flow only in winter when irrigation pumps are not in use, and Texas now allows Underground Water Districts to regulate and protect underground water; in Pecos County, the Middle Pecos Ground Water Conservation District oversees permitted wells and monitoring. Comanche Springs is the reason the community was founded and still exists, and Fort Stockton's convergence of highways and rail reflects the springs' long historic role as a watering stop for generations of travelers.