Terlingua, Texas

The Chisos Mining Company, a major quicksilver producer, was established in 1903 at Terlingua, in southern Brewster County. Founded by Howard E. Perry , a Chicago industrialist, the Chisos reported the first recovery in 1903, and during the next three decades became one of the nation's leading producers of quicksilver. Initially the company processed the cinnabar ore in primitive retorts, where the silver liquid metal is recovered through a simple baking process. As production increased, Perry turned to more industrialized methods; in 1908 he installed a twenty-ton Scott Furnace to help boost production. Exploration continued, and in 1914 the company discovered one of the richest veins of cinnabar ore in the Terlingua district. This discovery coincided with the outbreak of World War I , and with the increased military demands for the product, the company entered its most successful period. In 1915 the Chisos installed a more modern thirty-ton rotary furnace; within one ten-day period in September 1916 the company shipped two carloads of quicksilver from Alpine, valued at more than $50,000. Although strict secrecy surrounded the operation, one long-time Chisos employee claimed that company profits averaged $2,000 a day during the early war years and yielded more than $1,250,000 in its best year. In 1934 two Texas geologists, E. H. Sellards and C. L. Baker , cited the three-decade Chisos recovery at $12 million. Several factors contributed to the success. First, the property contained some of the richest ore in the quicksilver district; second, although he seldom went to the mine, Perry engaged men of outstanding caliber to supervise the onsite operations (metallurgist William Battle Phillips and geologist Johan August Udden ); third, quicksilver prices peaked during World War I, the period of the mine's maximum recovery; and fourth, an abundance of cheap Mexican labor. The community of Terlingua grew up around the mine. Its some 1,000 inhabitants had access to facilities of modern civilization: a company-owned commissary and hotel, several excellent dwellings (for Anglo employees), a school, a company doctor, telephone service, a dependable water supply, and three-times-a-week mail delivery. Prior to the use of mechanized vehicles in the early 1930s, the mule-drawn wagontrains that delivered the quicksilver to the railroad at Alpine and Marathon supplied the settlement. Production declined during the late 1930s, and on October 1, 1942, the company filed for bankruptcy. The Esperado Mining Company purchased the Chisos assets and operated the mine unsuccessfully until the end of World War II . At that time most of the surface installations were demolished and sold for scrap. On December 6, 1944, Howard E. Perry died in his sleep in a Boston hotel en route to a Florida vacation.

Abandoned mercury mining town near Big Bend. Once produced one-third of all quicksilver mined in the United States.

Famous Texas Ghost Town Terlingua With the mother-ore cinnabar strike in 1890, Terlingua became the world's quicksilver capital, yielding 40 percent of nation's need by 1922. Its name from Terlingua (Three Tongues) Creek nearby, was coined by Mexican herders. Comanche, Shawnees and Apaches lived on its upper reaches. Howard E. Perry's two-story mansion overlooked his Chisos Mining Company and townsite here, where 2,000 miners once used its jail, church, ice cream parlor, and theater. The mine flooded, mineral price fell and Terlingua died after World War II. (1966)

Villalba family tradition traces their lineage to Algiers where several generations were members of the order of Santiago. In 1764, Federico's great-grandfather, Juan Villalba, traveled to New Spain (Mexico). He founded Rancho Villalba in 1773 near present-day Aldama, Chihuahua, where Federico Villalba was born in 1858. Federico left his family's ranch and moved to San Carlos near the U.S.-Mexico border. He set up a store, selling rope, leather goods and sundries; it soon became important in San Carlos, and eventually supplied the military in the area. In the early 1880s, Villalba expanded his business interests into Texas. He settled in an area he called Cerro Villalba and opened a store. In 1889, Federico married Maria Cortez and began purchasing land. In 1902, Villalba located an outcrop of cinnabar, a mineral that produces mercury, and became the first Hispanic in the county to file a mining claim. Villalba, Tiburcio de la Rosa, D. Alarcon, and William study entered into a partnership that covered six parcels of twenty-one acres each, including what became known as the study butte mine. The Associated Mining Community took on the mine's name (Study Butte), as did Villalba's store (Study Butte Store). With a growing family, Federico built a larger house on his property along Terlingua Creek and named it Rancho Barras. Villalba amassed large tracts of land, including 15 sections in block G-4, with holdings extending from Burro Mesa to Terlingua Creek. During his life, Federico gained a reputation as a businessman and rancher, and as an advocate for Mexican Americans of the Big Bend. Villalba died of natural causes in 1933 on his ranch and is buried in Terlingua Cemetery. Federico and his legacy embody the spirit of a Texas pioneer. (2014)

Brewster County (L-7), the largest county in Texas, is located in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas, and is the site of Big Bend National Park , the largest park in the state. Brewster County is bordered by Presidio County to the west, Jeff Davis County to the northwest, Pecos County and Terrell County to the east, and the Rio Grande to the south. Alpine, the county seat and largest town, is 220 miles southeast of El Paso in northwestern Brewster County. The county's center lies about fifty miles southeast of Alpine at approximately 29°51' north latitude and 103°01' west longitude. U.S. Highway 90 and the Southern Pacific Railroad cross the northern part of the county; U. S. Highway 385 and State Highway 118 enter Brewster County from the northeast and northwest, respectively, and run south to Big Bend National Park; and the South Orient Railroad crosses the northwestern part of the county. Brewster County comprises 6,169 square miles of largely rough and mountainous terrain, with elevations ranging from 1,700 to 7,825 feet above sea level; the latter elevation, the tenth highest in the state, is at Emory Peak . Most of Brewster County drains into the Rio Grande, although the northern part drains into the Pecos River. Soils are generally shallow and stony, with some loamy to sandy soils and clayey subsoils. Vegetation at lower elevations in the county is drought resistant; sparse grasses, desert shrubs such as ocotillo, lechuguilla, sotol, acacias, tarbrush, and creosote bush, some mesquite, and cactus predominate. At intermediate elevations vast grasslands occur in mountain basins; white oak, juniper, and piñon woodlands dominate the slopes. Douglas fir, aspen, Arizona cypress, maple, Arizona pine, oaks, and madrone are found at the higher elevations. The fauna in Brewster County includes the pronghorn antelope, mule deer, white-tail deer, bobcat, mountain lion, desert bighorn sheep, black bear, coyote, raccoon, badger, prairie dog, pack rat, kangaroo rat, skunk, ringtail cat, porcupine, jackrabbit, cottontail, golden eagle, roadrunner, quail, dove, rock wren, white-winged dove, mourning dove, Canyon Wren, painted bunting, zone-tailed black hawk, and Colima warbler. Mineral resources include mercury, silver, lead, fluorspar, nonceramic clay, and lignite coal. Of these, the most important to the historical development of Brewster County was mercury; for most of the first half of the twentieth century the Terlingua Mining District in southern Brewster County was among the nation's leading producers ( see MERCURY MINING ). The climate is subtropical-arid. The average minimum temperature in January is 34° F, and the average maximum temperature in July is 95°. The growing season averages 239 days a year, and the average annual precipitation is twelve inches. Less than 1 percent of the land in the county is considered prime farmland. The area of southern Brewster County now in Big Bend National Park has long fascinated man, who has lived there for more than 9,000 years. The first human beings in the Big Bend were probably nomadic hunters and gatherers moving south ahead of the great ice sheets of the North American glaciers. When a prolonged period of drought ensued, the large game animals disappeared, and so did the people. When the drought ended, between 4000 and 3000 b.c., man reappeared. By around a.d. 1000 residents of the area were practicing rudimentary agriculture and could no longer be considered nomadic; and by the time the Spanish began to arrive, in the sixteenth century, pueblo culture had begun in the Big Bend. The first European to set foot in what is now Brewster County may have been Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1535; more certain is the presence in August 1583 of Antonio de Espejo 's expedition, which probably passed the future site of Alpine en route to La Junta de los Ríos . Juan Domínguez de Mendoza is believed to have camped at Kokernot Spring , just northeast of Alpine, in 1684. But