Mariscal Mine View

Here's another image from the wonderful 2013 Big Bend Calendar our friend, Derrick Birdsall is selling to celebrate both Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, AND send a portion of the profits back to our own Texas Mountain Trail!  (See yesterday's post!)

Mariscal Mine is in a remote and scenic part of Big Bend Ranch State Park, and not only provides a scenic vista of the entire area, but an insight into the human and mining history of the region.  To read more about that history, click here!

Link to the calendar is here.

Derrick's photography blog is here.

Big Bend's Mariscal Mine

There's a place on Big Bend National Park's rugged River Road that offers a peek at a early mining operations in the area.  The discovery of cinnabar--a bright red mercury ore--in 1900 encouraged several mining operations over the next few years.  The need for mercury in the First World War led to the building of Mariscal Mine.

 

From the park's webpage on the Mine:
"Mercury or "quicksilver," as it is known commercially, is the only metal that appears in liquid form at ordinary temperatures. Centuries of use as an amalgam to process precious metals, a detonator for explosives, an electrical conductor, and an agent for dental and medical preparations, made the enigmatic metal a highly valued commodity. While California was the first United States producer of mercury beginning in 1824, the industry advanced to West Texas by the end of the 1800s. From 1900 to 1930, the Terlingua Mining District, which borders present Big Bend National Park on the west, accounted for approximately one-third of the total U.S. output."

 

Here's a great brochure from the park's website.  Click here to read more about the history of the mine, and see map of the mine's structures.

The Cottonwoods of Shafter

All around Shafter yesterday, the color was YELLOW.  The community's runoff areas and little streams are home to cottonwood trees, and they're in glorious fall color.

The Shafter Mining District was active from 1883 to 1952, taking silver and related ores from the area, and once again, Shafter's seeing mining again.  Drive into town and visit the cemetery and cemetery museum to learn more about the history of this small and proud community, on Hwy 67 between Marfa and Presidio.

And unrelated to cottonwoods or mining, but still pretty interesting.....

The town was also featured in the opening scenes of the 1971 science fiction film, The Andromeda Strain, where it played a small town in New Mexico.  Shafter's lovely church, pictured in our last photo above, can be seen (if you watch for it--glimpses of it near  0:35, 0:55 and 1:05!) in the film's trailer, above.

One of our favorite wintertime landscapes, on a road mostly locals know

There's a road heading south from Marathon you really need to take...either by bicycle, motorcycle or car.  A 10 mile round trip offers a great adventure--history, geology, wildlife and nature--all packed into a short trip.  On a brisk winter day, we took this photo, looking north on our way back to town.  Lovely, right?

The road is known as the "Ride to the Post Heritage Bike Ride," on our website, but is ready for anyone (even non-cyclists!) to enjoy.  Consider all it offers:
The Road to the Post extends south on Avenue D in Marathon from US Highway 90 and the Union Pacific Railroad, and has an amazing history!

• Your route follows one fork of the Comanche War or Indian Trails into Mexico—there was a skirmish on the ridge above Post Park in 1855 between Buffalo Soldiers, Texas Rangers and Indians in 1855!
• It also generally follows the original Ore Roads to haul the ores (lead, zinc and silver) from the smelter at Boquillas in Mexico in 1895-1906, as well as quicksilver from the Terlingua, Study Butte and the Mariscal mines in south Brewster County to the railroad in Marathon as late as 1937!
• The route takes you near the historic cemetery and the site of an influenza tent hospital from the 1918 epidemic!
• The area known as Post Park was the site of a military encampment, farms, and ranches. Today it is the place for county-wide dance parties, fishing and birdwatching!
• The Gage Gardens and Post Park are both sites on the new Far West Texas Wildlife Trail.

Want to learn more?  Visit our "Ride to the Post" webpage for a link to a complete history, by Marathon resident Travis Roberts, PLUS a slideshow of the route!

Historic Shafter Cemetery

Yesterday, we showed a brief video of Shafter's beautiful church...today, we conclude Video Week with a short look at Shafter's historic cemetery.  It is located down an unpaved road and across a streambed from the church.  There's a small museum there, with plenty of interesting community and mining history.  Plan to visit this small, but fascinating place off Hwy 67 on your next visit to the Texas Mountain Trail region!

Ruins of Mariscal Mine in Big Bend National Park

Before it was a national park, the Big Bend area was where people lived and tried to make a living.  Folks ranched, farmed, were merchants.  One of the region's leading industries was mining. You can visit an abandoned mine on the remote River Road in Big Bend National Park.

To read more about this fascinating place, click here.
To read more about primitive dirt roads in the park, including the River Road, click here.

Cycling down the road to Post Park

We've started to put information on our website about another heritage bike ride, an easy, family-friendly 10 mile (roundtrip) ride from the town of Marathon to Post Park in Brewster County.  The route was used by the Comanche, by Buffalo Soldiers and by miners and ranchers early in the modern history of the area.  The ride starts at the historic (and cycle-friendly!) Gage Hotel or the Gage Gardens (a site on the new Far West Texas Wildlife Map) and is a simple out-and-back ride through beautiful scenery.  Take a look at the web page for more beautiful views and an outline of the history of this fascinating place!

Manhattan Heights Neighborhood

El Paso is a surprising city.  Most folks traveling never get off I-10 and that's a shame.  There are places in the city worthy of a little exploration, a little discovery.  One of these is the historic Manhattan Heights neighborhood, a gracious area adjacent to the Scenic Drive overlook.  Not only are there terrific views of the city from there, but also incredible vistas from Memorial Park.  And there's the Muncipal Rose Garden, too!  (Pictured here is a restored gas station, The neighborhood has an amazing history, for it was built on a copper smelting site.  (As you explore the neighborhood, you'll notice the street names:  Copper, Gold, Silver, etc!)  Read more about it here. 

Many of the homes were designed by local promiment local architects to reflect Prairie or Spanish styles--including Otto Thorman, Mabel Welch, William G. Wuehrmann, and Gustavo and Henry Trost.

For a slideshow of images from the neighborhood, click here.  The neighborhood has been rated one of El Paso's "most walkable," for a map, click here.

Shafter Cemetery

Shafter is an old mining town on the road from Marfa to Presidio, and while few people live there today, the signs of the old mining community are everywhere in town.  One of the interesting places to visit is the cemetery which has a small museum and tells the story of the area.

Thanks to Randy Mallory and the Texas Historical Commission for use of this photo!

Hummingbird Trail and Pollinator Garden

Fort Davis' Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens has many features to enjoy--including hiking trails, gardens, cactus greenhouse, historical mining exhibit.  These photos were taken in the pollinator garden and along the hummingbird trail (with the tip of Mitre Peak showing in the background)...when visiting Fort Davis, plan a trip to this wonderful place!

For information on hiking in Far West Texas, visit: www.texasmountaintrail.com/hike
For information on birding in Far West Texas, visit: www.texasmountaintrail.com/bird

West Texas Mining History

The Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center in Fort Davis has a great exhibit on mining history in Far West Texas, with plenty of artifacts from area mines. (The photos above are from their exhibits.)  Some of the artifacts come from Shafter, Texas which has its own museum (with plenty of mining history) at the cemetery.  Another place to visit is Big Bend National Park's Mariscal Mine.  You can read about it here.

Socorro Mission Restoration

A mission has been a part of life in Socorro (in eastern El Paso County) ever since the first one was founded after the Pueblo Revolt in 1680, and dedicated in 1682.  Since Socorro is on the Rio Grande, floods have plagued the area, destroying several mission churches.  This one, built in 1843, went through an impressive restoration, which was completed in 2005.  Read about it here and learn how this beautiful structure--along with its five foot thick adobe walls--was brought back from the brink of destruction.

Mariscal Mine in Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park's website offers this about Marsical Mine:
" Abandoned since the 1940s, and isolated by its remote location in the middle of Big Bend National Park, the Mariscal Mine is the best preserved mercury mining site in the state of Texas, and is a listed historic district on the National Register of Historic Places."

Along the River Road in Big Bend

Travelers heading down the River Road may be surprised--in the midst of uninhabited wide open spaces--to see remnants of an old mercury or quicksilver mine, the Mariscal Mine.

It towers above the road, and provides an incredible vista of the ground below. It was abandoned in the 1940s, and because of its remote location, it is one of the best preserved mercury mining sites in the country.

To read more about the Mariscal Mine, visit this page. You can even download a brochure to learn more.

Our Mining Heritage

Fort Davis' Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens has a mining heritage exhibit near the Visitor Center.

Volunteers are erecting interesting exhibits using retired mining equipment, ores mined in the Chihuahuan Desert, interpretive displays and historic photographs. Some of the artifacts were used in the locally filmed movie, "There Will Be Blood," starring Daniel Day Lewis.

For updates on the mining exhibit, visit the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute's website.

Mariscal Mine

Along the backcountry River Road in Big Bend National Park, there's a ruin of an old mercury mine that's fun to explore, Mariscal Mine abandoned for more than 60 years...check it out!