Alpine, My Alpine, Farewell

ALPINE - Taken from the side of Hancock Hill on the east side of Alpine, this photo looks across the downtown area of  Alpine to Twin Peaks, aka Twin Sisters, which the city has adopted as its emblem. It's altitude is 6,054 ft., but since the Alpine Valley floor where the city sits is 4,480 ft. above sea level, the height of the mountain above its base is 1,574 ft. Alpine is full of trees, but they have all been planted by residents over the years. Originally Alpine was as treeless as the surrounding high desert land is to this day.

     In a few days I will end my two-month sojourn in Texas and return home. For my final post, I am sending a potpourri of scenes from what has been my home away from home here in West Texas - the City of Alpine.  I've gotten rather fond of the place. This post will be mostly pictures to give an idea what the Alpine looks like.

BURGESS SPRING - When the spring is flowing, this dry

low spot is a small pond. The gold stubble was golden rod,

which died and has been chopped down. The spring is

named after John Bugess, a freighter whose wagon train

was attacked at the spring by Apaches and who managed

to fight them off. The spring was the reason the Southern

Pacific established a water stop here for its steam

locomotives. Alpine soon sprouted around that water

stop.

     With almost 6,000 residents, Alpine is by far the largest town in the entire Big Bend. Surrounded by thousands of square miles of virtually empty land, I have seen Alpine described as "the center of everything in the middle of nowhere," which just about nails it. As readers of this blog well know by now, West Texas is very thinly settled. As small as it is, Alpine is the fourth largest city in the entire Trans Pecos, after El Paso (pop 649,000), Pecos (pop. 8,780) and Fort Stockton (pop. 8,283).

     For a little town, it has a lot going for it. It is the county seat of Brewster County and the home of Sul Ross State University and the only hospital in the entire Big Bend. It is a ranching, banking, shopping, distribution and commercial center for Brewster as well as, to some degree, surrounding counties. It is an attractive town, with a clean downtown and mostly full storefronts, many fine homes and a scenic setting in a mountain valley. It has numerous hotels/motels and restaurants, including a 24-hour diner. It has a busy private airport and it is an Amtrak stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad. There is a excellent regional Big Bend history museum, a new library and increasingly Alpine is developing as an artist community. There is a large Border Patrol station, a U.S. Courthouse, a large DEA facility, and area TDOT and state police headquarters. There also appears to be an unusually busy civic life, with clubs, churches, the the university and the public schools always offering events for the public to join or attend.

     A large spring, called Burgess Water Hole (currently Kokernot Spring), put Alpine on the map long before there was a town here, or for that matter, before there were maps. The spring was used by the Comanches as part of their war trail system, and after they had been defeated, by the Mescalero Apaches. It was used by Europeans as early as 1683 when a Spanish exploration expedition passed through the area, and in the 19th Century it was used by freighters along the Chihuahua Trail.

ALPINE STATION - There was nothing but desert in Alpine until the railroad arrived in 1883 and made Alpine a water stop. Ranchers brought their cattle to the stop to be shipped, and soon a depot was built, circa 1884. It was built so early in the town's history that it preceded any churches, so town resident held Sunday services in the depot waiting room. Today's depot is the fourth to stand on the spot, the previous three having burned. And it is no longer a working depot. Amtrak makes three stops per week for passengers - the waiting room is still available - and freight trains run through town several times per day and night, stopping only to change crews. Livestock and freight no longer come or go by rail from Alpine. BELOW: As it has always been, the tracks run straight through downtown Alpine. Running on the north side and parallel to the tracks is Holland Street, which is the main downtown street. The Holland Hotel is just across the street from the station. The original hotel is the tan two-story building on the right. The larger white building to its left is "the annex," opened in 1927. The social center of town for decades, the Holland closed down in 1972. However, in recent years new owners have been fixing it up and trying to make a go of it. I prowled through the lobby and meeting room areas and found it thick with early 20th Century western charm.

    However, no town grew at the water hole until 1883 when what became the Southern Pacific Railroad finished building tracks from El Paso across the Big Bend to Del Rio. The rail passed within a mile of Burgess Water Hole, and a railroad camp was established there to water the steam engines from the spring. It was not long before the railroad water stop attracted area ranchers who brought their cattle to be shipped. Soon, enormous herds of cattle, sheep and goats were being raised in the area. By 1886 Alpine had become a big village, with a railroad depot and stockyard, stores, saloons, a hotel, and perhaps a a couple hundred residents.

MURPHY STREET - During the first year or two of Alpine's existence, it looked like the main downtown street would be along Murphy Street just to the south side of the railroad tracks. However, by 1886 most of the commercial building and activity was taking place just to the north of the tracks on Holland Street. These very western looking and recently revitalized buildings are on Murphy directly across the tracks from the railroad depot. Just to the left of 1898 Murphy St. Raspa Co. (above) is the Ritchey Hotel (below), long empty but preserved as a historic site. The oldest remaining commercial building in Alpine, it opened in 1886 and served mostly laborers and rail passengers. The hotel was directly across the street from the cattle holding pens adjacent to the railroad tracks. Only a couple years into its existence, Alpine became a culturally segregated community, with more prosperous businesses and Anglo residences on the north side of the tracks and a poorer Hispanic area to the south. The strong southside Mexican influence can definitely be seen in the photo of the Murphy Street swap shop shown below the hotel. I was surprised to learn that whites and Hispanics had segregated schools in Alpine, and that they somehow managed to keep them segregated until 1969, a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. Today the Southsiders continue to keep and celebrate their culture, including a lavish observance of Cinco De Mayo, which is a sort of Mexican Fourth of July.  And yet it appeared to me that the Anglos and Hispanics mix, get along and mutually respect each other much better than do blacks and whites on the East and West Coasts.

     As the railroad brought more settlers and commerce to the area, the state established Brewster County in 1887 with Alpine, the largest town in the county, as county seat. The citizens erected a county courthouse in 1888 that is still in use today, although an addition has been attached to it.

     As a county seat, rail depot and center of a thriving ranch industry, Alpine grew slowly. In 1920 the state built Sul Ross State Normal School at Alpine, which accelerated growth and, perhaps more importantly, made the town's economy less susceptible to the booms and busts of the livestock industry. (The school was named to honor Lawrence Sullivan Ross, who was a popular Texas governor, 1887-1891. During his incredibly busy life, he lived as boy in Waco during its founding, graduated from college, fought Indians - as a summer job, no less - joined the Texas Rangers after graduation and rose to the rank of captain, commanded troops at the Battle of Pease River, where a band of Comanches was virtually wiped out and famous captive Cynthia Ann Parker was rescued, became the youngest Confederate general, farmed, served as a state senator, governor and finally as president of Texas A&M - and died when he was only 59. Must have been quite a guy.)


     In 1944 Big Bend National Park was established, and Alpine fond itself adding a new line of business - tourism - since it is the nearest large town to the park. Alpine's tourist business continued to grow in ensuing years as other nearby attractions came online, such as the Marfa art scene and the Marfa Lights, Fort Davis National Historic Site and McDonald Observatory. Also, it is beginning to attract noticeable numbers of "Winter Texans" and retirees, who are attracted by the pleasant town, the grand scenery and desert quiet, good weather, surprisingly active cultural scene, low crime rate and moderately priced real estate. RVs are now a common sight rolling through town in search of its four RV parks.

     Over its history Alpine has had its ups and downs. Since the 1990s, it seems to be on a steady up, with new restaurants and hotels, increasing tourism, new people moving and a varied business base. It's a nice town, and I have thoroughly enjoyed being here long enough to get acquainted.

     And now, more pictures of Alpine:

HOLLAND STREET - Named after early 20th Century rancher, businessman, civic leader and Holland Hotel builder John Holland, Holland Street is Alpine's main street. Alpine has no WalMart nor large shopping center, so downtown Holland Street is still where its at. Having an alive, old time main street is one of Alpine's charms.  The top photo shows Holland at the intersection of Fifth Street. This corner is directly opposite and facing across the tracks toward the Murphy St. Raspa Co. pictured higher in this post. What a difference a railroad track makes. The lower photo was taken a little further down Holland Street. Built in 1929, the Granada was was Alpine's first movie theatre, but it is now used for other purposes. The Saddle Club is a popular saloon.

THE RANGRA - Built in 1921 for traveling vaudeville acts, the Rangra on Holland Street is now Alpine's only movie theatre. I went to two movies there (including Acts of Valor, great show!) and can tell you its nothing fancy. However, tickets are only five dollars. The original theatre has been divided into two movie theatres, one of them for 3-D. Each day there is an approximate 6 & 9 pm showing of two, sometimes three movies.  The place is rough and ready, but it has its own charm. For instance, you still by tickets through a window while standing out on the sidewalk. Alpine is lucky to have it. Next door is the Kiowa Gallery, probably the top gallery in Alpine. The woman who owns it started out there as a frame shop but expanded to become an art gallery. It is now probably the premier gallery in town. The owner is an energetic booster under whose influence Alpine is developing a clearly visible art community. The gallery was built in 1929 as a restaurant, and the current owner has done a marvelous of job of using the original Spanish mission styling to create a highly attractive storefront.

SIDE STREETS - Looking south (top) shows Fifth Street at is intersection with Avenue E one block north of Holland Street. Fifth Street is the major side street from Holland, and is lined with businesses for three of four blocks and eventually goes out to the hospital, airport, federal court and many other important facilities, and on to Fort Davis. The Lost Alaskan RV park is also out there, 1.5 miles from this intersection, so I went up and down Fifth Street everyday, often on my bicycle.  The two story building at left was built as a Masonic Lodge in 1912. The Lodge is now about a mile further north on fifth. Today the former lodge houses the weekly Alpine Avalanche newspaper and there are apartments upstairs. Oh, and it for sale - $499,000. The lower photo shows Sixth Street, which used to be the primo side street but today is much quieter. The county court house is on the photographer's right. 

SUL ROSS STATE UNIVERSITY - Founded as a normal school in 1920, Sul Ross is just to the east of downtown Alpine with a splendid view of the city from its perch on the side of Hancock Hill. With 2,000 students and a few hundred employees, Sul Ross is a major presence in this town of less than 6,000 people. An inexpensive school, it is a great opportunity for local young people who do not wish or cannot afford to go away to school. Top photo shows one of the entrances to campus at Lawrence Hall, the administrative building. Note the white marking on the hillside at upper right. It is the school's logo, which is in the form of a ranch brand - bar SR bar. The second photo, which better shows the extent of the campus, was taken from an SR athletic field across the tracks in Southside. Third is another frontview of campus. The steer sculpture denotes Sul Ross's western heritage. Collegiate rodeo began here, and the school is known for its School or Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (read ranching). It also has degree programs in business administration, criminal justice, education and various arts & sciences fields, as well as numerous masters programs. Most of the academic buildings are arranged around a park-like pedestrian mall, part of which is shown in the bottom photo. While relaxing on a bench in this white columned, red brick canyon of grass and shade trees, it is easy to imagine oneself on some other college campus far away from the immense West Texas desert. 

BREWSTER COUNTY COURTHOUSE - The state legislature created Brewster County in 1887 and this county courthouse opened in 1888. It is still in use today, although an annex out back has been added. The old building was recently spruced up for Brewster's 125th anniversary, which took place March 30. I sat on one of the benches under this tree and listened to the ceremonies on the bandstand, which is to the right of camera. After the ceremony, a local rancher served a  delicious beef BBQ picnic.   

MUSEUM OF THE BIG BEND - Located on the Sul Ross campus, this building was designed  by Victor Smith, a dynamo early Sul Ross professor, and built about 1936 of native stone. Largely an archaeological and history museum about the Big Bend region, it has highly interesting and professionally rendered exhibits and displays. It is one of the best small museums I have ever seen. There is a huge, full-size pterosaur hanging from the ceiling. Hoo boy! I'm glad those big bad boys are extinct.  

KOKERNOT FIELD - Herbert Kokernot Jr., scion of a wealthy local ranch family, determined Alpine should have a semi-professional baseball team, which he named the Cowboys. In 1947 he built this stadium patterned after Wrigley Field, but much smaller of course. It is a gem. It was considered one of the most beautiful and functional baseball facilities in America. The grandstand seats 1,000 people who not only have a good view of the lusciously maintained field but scenic West Texas Mountains as well. From 1959-1961, the cowboys became a farm team of the Boston Red Sox, but Boston did not renew the contract after that and professional baseball came to an end in Alpine. Now Kokernot Field belongs to the Alpine Independent School District, which leases it to Sul Ross for its baseball team.

BIG BEND HOSPITAL - The Big Bend Regional Medical Center is a 25-bed facility with a 24-hour doctor staffed emergency room and Level IV trauma center. It is the only hospital in the entire Big Bend region, an area three times the size of Connecticut. Though they are glad it's here, people in Alpine don't seem to have a very high opinion of it. They say you have to go to Odessa/Midland, 155 miles away, "if you have anything REALLY wrong with you." Of course, this small, remote hospital necessarily focuses on basic care such as family practice, general surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, physical therapy, podiatry and radiology. Seriously ill emergency patients are flown by fixed wing aircraft to Odessa/Midland - two pilots, a doctor and nurse on board, $20,000 please. Word is the hospital has a difficult time finding staff, and they are forced to resort to traveling personnel. We have two nurses living in RVs in the Lost Alaskan, which is almost across the road from the hospital. There is a traveling doctor in the park, too. The hospital has six "active" and nine "courtesy" physicians (whatever all that means) and 135 other employees.  

OTHER ALPINE SIGHTS  - Top is the new U.S. District Courthouse, which is near the hospital on outer Fifth Street. In the middle is Alpine High School, also on Fifth Street and next door to Kokernot Field. Bottom photo is of a portion of Alpine Creek, one of the major drainage streams in Brewster County, though it seldom has water in it. It winds from corner to corner of Alpine, passing through downtown on the way. Throughout the city it is crossed by several raised bridges, like this, as well as low water bridges. In some places levies and containment walls have been constucted, as here. When Alpine Creek runs, it runs northeasterly and drains this relatively small, northwestern part of the county into the Pecos river. The remaining great majority of the county drains south into the Rio Grande. 

ALPINE CHURCHES - Alpine has 22 churches, some of them very handsome. Our Lady

of Peace Catholic Church, top, was built in 1940 to replace a smaller older church on

the same site that was built in 1900. It is very nice inside. There is a parish hall next

door, a prayer grotto and a parochial school, which is now closed. Both Anglos and

Hispanics belong to this church, but there are Spanish and English Sunday services,

which in my observation tends to separate the two groups. Next down is the impressive
looking, Mission Revival style First Methodist Church. It was established in 1889 and
its present building shown above was opened in 1925. The handsome and unusual

First Baptist Church (third from top) was built in 1917. It seats 700 and has 14 Sunday
school rooms. The church was organized in 1893 and worshipped in a small adobe
structure on the same site until this church was built. Fourth down is the First Christian
Church, constructed in1906 in High Victorian Gothic style. Lastly is Alpine's
Congregational Church. It's not as big nor attractive as the others, but I include it for
Dad, Jill and Anne-sister. I always think of the Congo as a New England church, and
I am always surprised to find them in little towns out West.  

SOUTHSIDE STREETS - Some of the mostly Hispanic Southside looks better than this, some not so good. It is definitely a part of town predominately inhabited by less well-to-do folks than the predominately better-off citizens north of the railroad tracks. The street in the top photo is almost out the front door of the Catholic Church shown higher in this post. If you look closely you can see the railroad crossing the end of the street. The square, two story, light tan building beyond the track is the Holland Hotel on the northside's Holland Street. In the bottom photo, Sul Ross State University can be seen across the tracks to the north. Some of the Southside streets are unpaved. However, the majority of paved streets in Alpine are very rough and in need of resurfacing.

ALPINE HOUSES - After two months of driving and riding bike around Alpine, I am impressed with the variety of house styles in this small town. As in many places in the Southwest, adobe is a big player, but also popular here are native stone in ranch and spanish Colonial styles, as well as brick and frame houses in various styles, including many in the ranch style frequently seen in East Coast suburbs. The two top houses are what I, for lack of learning, call "Texas houses," although I have seen them referred to as Texas Victorians(?). Whatever they are, I love 'em. They can be built of brick, stone block or adobe, but they always have a pitched roof and are shaped like an L or U wrapped around a front porch. To me they have a solid, comfortable look about them, and they say, "Texas!" They seem to have had their day from 1900-1930, because few seem to be newer than that. The next three pictures are adobes. In the often treeless Southwest, they are easy to build using material right under your feet. The are comfortable shelters against the West Texas heat, cold and wind, and with routine maintenance, they will last for centuries. In Alpine they range from hovels to extremely nice places. The tan one is small, perhaps four rooms, and recently built in an ancient style. Note the small windows. But Alpine also has many fancier adobes, like the attractive yellow one, and some that are luxuriously elegant like the pink mansion. One of my favorite houses in town is the New England cottage (bottom). If it were taken apart and rebuilt in Harpswell, Maine, nobody would guess it was originally built in the Chihuahuan Desert. The style is so rare here that this house is included on the Alpine Chamber of Commerces driving tour of the city. By the way, it is nearly impossible to take pictures of many nice homes in Alpine because they are surrounded by 6-7 ft. tall solid walls. It's a cultural thing from Mexico, where homeowners, especially those with some money like to make a walled "compound" of their property. In alpine I have seen "compounds" on city lots where the wall is only a few feet from the sides of the house and shuts off the view from the house's windows. Strange. 

Over The Hill In East Brewster

WEST TEXAS RANCH LAND - This ranch land is located about five miles south of Marathon in eastern Brewster County. If you can picture this scene without me, the windmill and the brown water tank in it, you are picturing what eastern Brewster County looks like: Hundreds of square miles of huge ranches with scrubby land like this and mountains always in the distance. The land is so parched it takes more than 50 acres to produce enough grass to keep one cow alive. 

     April 4 brought yet another good trip with Tom Shorrt, this one down through eastern portions of Brewster County to the ghost town of Lalinda on the Rio Grande.

      A series of mountain ranges running north to south - the Glass, the Del Norte, the Santiago and the Dead Horse Mountains - split the county. U.S. 90, which runs east-west in the northern portion of the county, is the only road that passes through the mountains to tie together the two halves of this enormous, 6,192 square mile county. It appears to me if you live in Alpine, which is where two-thirds of the county resides, and which is west of the mountain divide, you tend to stay in Alpine. The only town in east Brewster is tiny Marathon, pop. 430. If you live there, you are liable to go to 57 miles to Fort Stockton in neighboring Pecos County for your shopping needs, instead of the 30 miles to Alpine. Why? Fort Stockton is considerably larger than Alpine AND has a WalMart, which Alpine does not. Thus I sense that west and east Brewster County, while one, are more like neighbors than family. In fact, there was a time when east Brewster was actually two separate counties, Buchel and Foley. But the two never gained enough people in them to organize a county government, and the state legislature eventually abolished them and added their territories to Brewster County.

    So, on a fine morning, Tom and I headed to eastern Brewster. I wanted to see Pena Colorado, an oasis that used to be the site of a cavalry fort, and the locally well known Stillwell Ranch. In addition, Tom thought I should see Lalinda.

PENA COLORADO - A very productive spring creates this pond in a remote Brewster County park called The Post. It takes its name from the fact an Army post called Camp Pena Colorado was located here in the late 19th Century. It would be a pretty spot anywhere, but in the endless high desert country of Brewster County it is absolutely beguiling. You just don't want to leave. 

PORKY'S DEMISE - The camera catches my cousin and

guide, Tom Shortt of Alpine, standing beside Pena

Colorado Spring recounting the demise of his "friend,"

Porky. Porky was a really bad hombre who had done a

lot of bad things to people and, consequently, had a lot

of enemies. Porky was found weighted down with chains

and bricks at the bottom of the spring. His death was

ruled an accident. For local color, you can't beat having

Tom as a tour guide around these parts.

     Our first stop was Pena Colorado about seven miles south of Marathon. In 1879 two companies of infantry were sent there to deny the use of its water to marauding Apaches and to protect surveyors and workman preparing for the coming of the railroad, as well as supporting area cattlemen who lived in constant fear of the Apaches. Camp Pena Colorado was a sub station of Fort Davis. It was decommissioned in 1893. The Army only put up six building there, all of which I knew had disintegrated back to earth and, furthermore, were located on what is now private ranch land. However, I had knew the spring was still there - though I wasn't sure that it would not be dry due to the drought - and that is was supposed to be a beautiful spot, a West Texas oasis. Well, there was water there, and it was beautiful. It was so peaceful and pretty that I had to drag myself away. Just wanted to stay there all day. It is the second spot like that I've found out here, the other being Madera Canyon in the Davis Mountains.

     Pena Colorado is now a five acre county park, called The Post, with shade trees, green grass and public facilities such as rest rooms and picnic tables and, of course, the spring. The spring had been dammed up creating a pond about one acre in size, which is an ocean out here. Swimming and fishing are allowed. There are catfish and stocked trout. The spring appeared entirely unaffected by the drought. The pond was full to the brim and water was running over the spillway at a rate similar to a garden hose. It was a beguiling place.

     It was about 45 miles of empty land to the next stop at Stillwell Ranch. In the distance on both sides were rugged, naked mountains. We were passing through what seemed a limitless desert area with nary a soul nor building in sight. I was lucky to have Tom along to point things out. He would announce something like, "We just crossed Maravillas Creek, which is the biggest waterway in this section of the county." I saw a bone dry gully. Or, "Now we are on the Combs ranch, which is where Susan Combs lives. She might end up becoming our next governor." I saw only miles and miles of desert identical to what we had been cruising through for half an hour, but Tom's information now caused me to look upon this particular patch with new respect.

STILLWELL STORE - Located on the Stillwell Ranch in the Chihuahuan Desert in southeastern Brewster County is the only civilization for at least 40 miles in any direction. Stillwell Ranch is actually a sort of resort .... sort of.  Besides the store and gas pump, with above ground tanks, there are a few RV sites, a bath house, a museum and a gift shop. There is nearly zero traffic on the road, and it is exceedingly quiet there. Rocking on the store's porch, the rest of the world seems far, far away.

    Roy R. Stillwell established his ranch in 1906 some 40 miles south of Marathon and 20 north of the Rio Grande. Even a ranching know-nothing like me could see it was poor land, parched and with little grass. Luckily he had a lot of it - 32,000 acres. It was enough to run 600 mother cows. That comes out to 53 acres per cow. It takes only one acre to support a cow in Virginia. In 1918 he married Hallie Crawford from Alpine.  She was quite a character. She arrived with her parents and siblings in Alpine in 1910 - in a covered wagon. She did many things in her long life that ended just shy of 100 years. Her husband was killed in a pickup truck accident in 1948, and she would live on another 50 years. Her son took over management of the ranch, though she remained involved and often worked there on weekends, where they opened a country store and, eventually a small RV park. For the most part, however, she lived in Alpine where she was a justice of the peace for many years. In addition to ranching, being a judge and keeping store, she also served at various times as a teacher, newspaper correspondent, president of civic clubs and authored a couple books, among other things. She became enough of a community pillar and locally beloved figure that, during the last few years of her life, area people donated money to build a museum about her life next door to the ranch store. The Stillwell Ranch is now a minor tourist destination in the middle of nowhere, perhaps especially for RVers. There is the store which, in addition to selling camping supplies, has a small gift shop, sells rocks and dabbles in homemade food, especially delicious burritos. There is a fairly decent bath house that has signs instructing people to put absolutely NO PAPER in the toilets. A waste basket is beside each toilet into which soiled paper is to be dropped. Gross! (Apparently they have septic system problems. There are various out buildings containing workshops, a single gas pump fed by above ground gas tanks. There are about 10 RV sites, the Halle Stillwell Museum, and occasionally live entertainment.

DESERT IN BLOOM - Winter has been mild

 and spring has come early in Brewster County.

But the drought has been fierce. Many desert

plants are dead, but some survive where

underground water still remains or, strangely,

along roadsides. These were photographed in

eastern Brewster County April 4: Top, hedgehog

cactus (or so I think). Second from top, Spanish

dagger yucca. Third from top, prickly pear.

Bottom, ocotilla (oak ah TEE ya).

     When Tom and I arrived there were two RVs and a small group of motorcyclists. We went into the store, which was being tended by a woman in her 60s who turned out to be Hallie Stillwell's granddaughter. She told us that the ranch, "what's left of it," is still in family hands, but times are tough. The drought has dried up two of the three wells on the place, and forced them to sell their last 100 cattle. Tom and I sat on the store's comfy porch and ate our burritos. The motorcyclists roared off toward Marathon, leaving dead silence in their wake. Sublime peacefulness as I rocked on the porch looking contentedly at the low, desert hillside across the road. However, it wasn't long before a truck bearing muddy conoes and a van carrying the sunburned canoeists pulled into the dooryard. Noise. They had just pulled out of the Rio Grande somewhere near Lalinda, and stopped at the store to have lunch. They spoke a foreign language and appeared to be from Europe. The river level is so low that it is difficult to find a place to run boats. In some places it is little more than a string of puddles, and the canoeists have to drag their vessels over the low spots. One fellow told me running the river is currently more like a "canoe assisted hike." 

     Tom and I went into the Hallie Stillwell Museum. It was a sturdy adobe with unusually high ceilings for an adobe. It was set up like a house with a huge living room, a large foyer, kitchen and two other rooms, all filled with Hallie Stillwell momentos, her hats, her cook stove, her guns, pictures of her family and her husband's, her furniture and so on. It was more interesting than I expected.

     The road to Lalinda was a roller coaster but well paved, thankfully. Desert plains, desert hills, desert mountains, desert dry creeks. All of it stony, creosote and cactus covered land, and getting warmer by the mile as we descended down to the Rio Grande. Many of the desert plants were obviously dead because of the drought. Tom said he had never seen it so bad. Even the lechuguilla (letch ah gee ya (gee as in gear)) is dying off. Lechuguilla is a plant that looks like yucca and is considered by bilogist to be a "marker plant" for the health of the Chihuahuan Desert. We crested one more roller coaster hill and at last looked down into the Rio Grande Valley. One little white spot at the bottom, miles from us, was an abandoned Catholic church in Lalinda.

RIO GRANDE VALLEY AND LALINDA - The hilly road from Stillwell Store to Lalinda finally reached the spot (above) giving a grand view of the Rio Grand Valley. Note the little white spot at 10 o'clock above my right shoulder. That is an abandoned church and the only structure that can be seen in Lalinda from this point. It and the mountains beyond are in Mexico. Driving further down into the valley eventually brought us to the view of Lalinda below, showing the fluorspar mill on the left, the "downtown" in the middle and some of the residential neighborhoods on the right. Lalinda was a company town built by Dow Chemical to house its employees at the mill and mine. Now here it lies, an entire town abandoned, probably less than 20 years ago. A patch of the Rio Grande can be seen just right of center in the foreground.

     Coasting down into the valley, the rest of Lalinda and the mining company's processing mill gradually came into view on the Mexican side of the river. Then we came to the end of the road, the Gerstaker (gurh STACK urh) Bridge. Lalinda was a company town. Dow Chemical mined fluorspar in the hills beyond Lalinda, brought the ore to the processing plant in town and then loaded the milled product on trucks to cross the Gerstaker into the U.S. and head north. I presume the town with its fairly nice homes was built for the company's upper level local staff employees, likely American, such as managers, engineers, supervisors, accountants and upper level storekeeping and clerical people. The surprising thing about Lalinda is it's new. The houses are modern, American looking buildings arranged in neighborhoods. They and the mill all look like they could be quickly put back into operation. On one of the town streets I saw what looked like a large, nearly new Caterpillar back hoe with flat tires. Abandoned. It would have been fun to cross over the river and poke around, but of course that would have been risky. As Tom says about this big empty country, "It looks like there is no one around, but there is always someone around."

GERSTAKER BRIDGE - Tom Shortt photographs the Gerstaker bridge built over the Rio Grande by Dow Chemical in 1964 and closed by the Mexican government in 1997. Dow built it to carry truckloads of mined fluorspar from the mill in Lalinda north into the U.S. The town is just out of camera view to the left. Though modern and still in good shape, the bridge is just barely wide enough to allow passage for a big truck. It is blocked with a steel, cage-like fence plus several New Jersey barriers preceding it. Look carefully to the right on the far side of the bridge. A white building is visible partially rising above the brush. That was the Mexican customs building, and it is where smugglers shot three Mexican border guards, two fatally, causing the Mexican government to close the bridge.

     I don't know when the mine opened and Lalinda was built. I do know, however that Dow built the bridge in 1964, and the Mexican government closed it 1997. The area is known for smuggling, especially exotic, illegal animal furs. In 1997 a shootout erupted on the Mexican side of the bridge between some smugglers and the three border guards on duty.  Tom surmises the border guards were demanding more of a bribe than the smugglers were willing to pay. At any rate, two of the guards were killed and the third one was left for dead. The Lalinda mining operation may have already been closed by then, however.

     We took pictures and studied the Mexican side with binoculars. It was very warn, Tom guessed the low 90s. Back in Alpine, 3,000 ft. higher, is was in the 70s. We hopped into the van, cranked up the AC and began the roller coaster ride back to Stillwell Store and then on to Marathon. On the way we stopped at a roadside picnic spot so I could take pictures of a blooming yucca. In thick brush beside the road, just inside a barb wire fence, Tom spotted a long dead Hereford. It was a skeleton, but amazingly its hide was still intact and wrapped around the bones. Tom pushed his way into the brush and picked up the skull with horns and even the white forelock hair across the brow still intact. He said he always wanted a skull like that, so into the van it went to live forevermore on the Shorrt Ranch in Alpine. I like to think I participated in a Texas cattle drive. As we drove off from the picnic area, I inquired if we were now guilty of cattle rustling, but Tom opined the owner, who he knew, would probably not prosecute us. Probably?

MORE VIEWS OF LALINDA - Top, the Lalinda mill with the "downtown" area to the right. The Rio Grande can be seen at right just below the centerline. Middle, a closer look at the abandoned mill. Bottom: I climbed over several New Jersey barriers to get far enough out on the Gerstaker Bridge to get this camera angle, which shows the Rio Grande as it flows downstream from under the bridge. "Downtown" Lalinda is at upper left, while residential neighborhoods sprawl from there to the right. Nothing was moving over there. It appeared completely empty. The American style houses appeared to be still in pretty good shape, though definitely abandoned looking. It's surprising to me that Mexicans living in the area haven't torn them apart for salvage.