Marfa Burrito and Pancho Villa

There's a little place to get great $5 burritos on South San Antonio Street (Hwy 67) heading towards Shafter.  Open for breakfast and lunch, there's more than just terrific Mexican food there.  The walls are filled with handmade posters with greetings from film crews and musicians who've blown through town.  There are also clippings and photos of Pancho Villa and his family...for Marfa's history is very much shaped by Villa and the exodus of refugees fleeing Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

Consider this photograph from the collection of the Marfa Public Library in University of North Texas Libraries' Portal to Texas History of Mexican refugees fleeing Villa in 1914.


[Mexican refugees fleeing from Pancho Villa], Photograph, n.d.; digital image, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth39634/ : accessed September 27, 2012), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Marfa Public Library, Marfa, Texas.

From the Texas State Historical Association's online entry for Presidio County:

"The growth of Presidio County's population in the 1910s reflected the impact of the Mexican Revolution on border life. Refugees migrated to the county from Chihuahua as the fighting moved into northern Mexico. The United States Army established several posts in the county to watch for border incursions. Marfa became the headquarters for the Big Bend Military District, and in 1917 the Army established Camp Marfa, later called Fort D. A. Russell, at Marfa to protect the border. Cavalry posts were established at Shafter, Candelaria, Redford, Presidio, Indio, Ruidosa, and Camp Holland. Raids by Mexican bandits and paramilitary forces invited fierce and sometimes excessive retaliation by the United States military and by the Texas Rangers^qv. Incidents like the Brite Ranch Raid, the Neville Ranch Raid, and the Porvenir Massacre spread insecurity and racial hatred throughout the county and the border region."

So while you wait for a huge, wonderful lunch or breakfast, take the time to get a local's spin on that heritage from Marfa Burrito's walls!

Bonus:  Special thanks to Stonewear Designs for letting us try some of their fall line...here our Texas Mountain Trail Executive Director is wearing the ready-for-any-adventure Liberty Skort!