Government Wells Cavalry Cache — Duval County

Before Freer was founded, the area was called Government Wells for a water well dug by United States Cavalry troops in 1876 on the property of A. J. Wiederkehr, north of the present townsite. Earlier names included Las Hermanitas and Rosita Valley. Norman G. Collins, who moved to Duval County in 1867 and became the county's leading sheep rancher, bought 35,000 acres that included the Government Wells site as part of his Rancho Americano. German settler William Hubberd managed the ranch and bought his own land in 1876. Frontier cavalry posts and watering camps often generated tales of buried pay chests when troops rotated out of the brush country. Coordinates approximate Government Wells north of Freer in Duval County.