Cline

CLINE, TEXAS . Cline is on U.S. Highway 90 and the Southern Pacific Railroad eighteen miles west of Uvalde in southwestern Uvalde County. The site was in Dawson County between 1858 and 1866. The community was first settled by Celeste Pingenot, from Castroville, who arrived with some cattle in 1870 and constructed a home on the south bank of Turkey Creek in 1871. During the 1870s he established a stagecoach depot complete with stables and corals, commonly referred to as the Turkey Creek Stage Stop. Pingenot also built a store and saloon near his home and established the Wallace Inn, named after his friend who brought mail to the site, William A. A. (Bigfoot) Wallace . Turkey Creek, as the settlement was called for most of the 1870s, was located near the Old Spanish Trail and was a rest stop for many travelers on their way west to Brackettville or to the silver mines near Chihuahua City, Mexico. Pingenot's small enterprise was the victim of cattle-thieving Indians and Mexican bandits during its first years of operation.