Big Bend National Park to Marfa, TX
Big Bend National Park is not the only major attraction in the area. Adjacent to the west is Big Bend Ranch State Park, a Texas State Park that protects another 300,000 acres next to the Rio Grande. The view leaving Big Bend National Park includes mountains continuing to march along the southern bank of the Rio Grande in Mexico.
This area, tucked between the national park and the state park, has a history of mining around the “ghost town” of Terlingua.
Terlingua, TX
Large deposits of cinnabar, the ore that is refined into liquid mercury, were found in the area in the late 1800’s. The Chisos Mining Company incorporated in 1903 and by 1918 was the largest producer of mercury in the United States. The small town of Terlingua grew up on the hillside east of the mine. The mines played out and the company went bankrupt in 1944, leaving the town with no purpose for existing and it quickly was abandoned to the elements. A few people stayed in the area but most of the structures were empty. The area slumbered on until 1967 when an argument over whether Texans or New Yorkers knew more about chili resulted in a chili cook-off, billed as the Terlingua International Championship Chili Cook-Off. Held in November every year since 1967, last year it drew nearly 10,000 people to this remote corner of the desert. Terlingua now is an interesting home for “counter-culture” inhabitants, artists, and people looking for a refuge in the desert. Located just off Hwy 170 a couple of miles past the entrance to the national park, the first sign of Terlingua is a cluster of tipis in the desert (a resting site for weary tourists…)
Just beyond is the turn-off to the remnants of the mining town, scattered across the hillside, some inhabited, some not.
Perched above the town is the Perry Mansion, home to the mine owner and now a hotel.
The pavement ends in front of the largest commercial building in town, a combination tourist shop and restaurant.
Standing on the front porch of the tourist shop, I have a great view down across the town and across the desert to the mountains of Big Bend National Park.
Leaving Terlingua and heading west the road drops down again towards the Rio Grande River, tucked away at the base of the mountains to the south.
A sense of excitement builds as one of the highly anticipated events of the trip is about to unfold, traveling the River Road between Lajitas and Presidio.
River Road
Lajitas is where Hwy 170 resumes following the Rio Grande River. The junction of the river and highway is the site of a golf resort (totally out in the middle of nowhere, there isn’t really a town or many buildings not associated with the resort). The Rio Grande languidly flows in a narrow band of green.
The nearly 50 mile drive between Lajitas and Presidio is one of America’s great scenic highways and it tries to follow the Rio Grande’s path through the rugged mountains. It’s a narrow, twisting road with a number of steep rises and descents between hairpin curves. Fortunately there is not much traffic so I can take advantage of the full width of the road on those turns… Buckle up, buttercup, we’re in for a bumpy ride!
Another tasteful Texas picnic area denotes the beginning of the canyon ahead.
At the top of the road a wide area allows for a picture back down into the canyon of the Rio Grande.
The trip up, down and around the canyon is spectacular but you’ll have to take my word for it. The road is narrow, twisting and turning through steep climbs and descents with no shoulder and simply not conducive for picture taking. Finally about 40 miles into the stretch we slide down the last decline and out onto the desert floor near Presidio.
A major tributary of the Rio Grande, the Rio Conchos, flows into the Rio Grande from the interior of Mexico just further west and in modern times actually provides the vast majority of the water that flows down the river into the Gulf. (Long-time readers might recall that on an earlier trip through New Mexico I discovered that around the city of Truth or Consequences the Rio Grande actually is dry.) The area, called La Junta by the Spanish (means “the junction” in English), has water and fertile soils in the flood plain along the rivers and natives had been settled in the area for at least 800 years. In 1848 Ben Leaton and his family moved to the area and began fortifying a large adobe structure on a bluff east of the river junction above the flood plain. It eventually became called Fort Leaton.
Fort Leaton
Now five miles east of the town of Presidio, Fort Leaton has been partially restored as a Texas State Historic Site. More a fortified trading post rather than an actual military fort, the business was in existence until 1884. The site was abandoned until the late 1960’s when the state began the restoration, work on which continues to this day.
The main exterior entrance is on the wall which faces southeast with a view over the Rio Grande flood plain.
The floor plan of the trading post shows the adobe structure included a large walled-in corral. The dark lines on the diagram denote the area that has been restored with under a roof, the gray lines are walls that are open to the sky.
Rooms 1 (office), 2 (sleeping/family room), 3 (main parlor) and 11 (dining room) composed the main living space for the family.
The courtyard separated the living quarters from the servants, staff and visitors’ quarters across the way.
The kitchen had a large fireplace that could accommodate a lot of pots as well as large chunks of beef roasting over an open fire.
Beyond were the corrals, store rooms, etc. (Only the walls are present, this is the part of the complex where rooms do not have roofs.
Five miles west is the small border town of Presidio.
This is not a large town, the downtown shops straggle along the main street heading to the border crossing.
An attempt at landscaping at the border crossing has the only palm trees I have seen since leaving the RGV struggling to grow.
Presidio marks a turning point in my wanderings. I am now leaving the Rio Grande and striking north across the desert. The road slowly rises up from the Rio Grande and the dirt/gravel surface of the desert gradually gives way to areas of grass as the rise in elevation results in the change in vegetation.
Crossing a band of mountains the road now descends onto the plains of southwest Texas, nearing the town of Marfa, our next destination.
Next up: Nazis in Texas?
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