Brewster County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in West Texas and its county seat (and only city) is Alpine.[1] It is one of the nine counties that comprise the Trans-Pecos region, and borders Mexico. Brewster County is the largest county by area in the state - at 6,192 square miles (16,040 km2) it is over three times the size of the state of Delaware, and more than 500 square miles (1,300 km2) bigger than Connecticut.[2]
Paleo-Indianhunter-gatherers existed in the region at least 9000 years ago. Mescalaro Apaches emerged later and conducted raids that discouraged settlers. Between 1779 and 1787, Col. Juan de Ugalde drove the Mescalaros back north across the Rio Grande and into the Chisos Mountains. The three leading Mescalero chiefs, Patula Grande, Quemado, and Zapato Tuerto, agreed in March 1789 to submit to Spanish rule.[4]Comanche raiding parties continued through much of the 19th century.[5]
Northern Mexican military governor Lt. Col. Hugo Oconór led a 1772 expedition to locate sites for forts on the Comanche Trail along the Rio Grande.[9][10]
In October 1851, Danish-born Col. Edvard Emil Langberg, Mexican commandant of Chihuahua, visited southern Brewster County.[11]
Surveyor William H. Emory in 1852 sent M. T. W. Chandler to survey what is now the heart of Big Bend National Park. Chandler explored Santa Elena Canyon, the Chisos Mountains Mariscal Canyon, and Boquillas Canyon.[12]
An 1859 expedition of the U.S. Camel Corps under 2d Lt. Edward L. Hartz explored the Comanche Trail through Persimmon Gap and down Tornillo Creek to the Rio Grande. A year later, a second camel expedition under 2d Lt. William Echols also explored along the Rio Grande.[5]
County established and growth
Map of Presidio County, Texas and the counties of Brewster, Buchel, Foley, and Jeff Davis created from Presidio in 1887: Buchel and Foley were abolished and joined to Brewster in 1897.
Brewster County was marked off in 1887 from Presidio County and named for Henry Percy Brewster. Murphyville, later renamed Alpine, was selected as county seat.[13]
In response to threats of ongoing Indian attacks, Camp Peña Colorado was established in 1879 a few miles south of the future site of Marathon.[14]
Word of mouth about the open rangeland in the area was spread by freighters John W Burgess and August Santleben, leading the way for settlers.[15]
Alfred S. Gage moved to the area in 1882 to help his brother's ranching operation, founding the A. S. Gage Ranch, one of the largest ranching operations in Texas, in 1883. In 1927, he built the Gage Hotel in Marathon.[17][18][19]
Joseph Daniel Jackson came to the area in 1882 as part of Company B of the Texas Rangers assigned to protect the railroad. By 1882, he had settled near Alpine and taken up ranching, branching out later to become a merchant and civic leader. Jackson is known locally as the father of Sul Ross University due to his efforts that helped lead to the establishment of the school.[23] Sul Ross University, named for Texas Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross, was created by an act of the 35th Legislature in 1917 as a state normal college to train teachers.[24]
Population boom
The population grew from 710 in 1890 to 5,220 in 1910 due for the most part to industries that relied on natural resources.[5]
From the turn of the 20th century through World War II, the Terlingua Mining District, west of the Chisos Mountains, was a boom town due to the extraction of cinnabar, a mercury ore. Silver and lead from mines on the Mexican side of the river in the Boquillas area were shipped north, as were candelilla wax produced at factories at Glenn Spring and Mariscal, and the guayule rubber from a factory in Marathon.[25]
Pancho Villa and banditos
Brewster County became targeted by incursions of bandits from Mexico, inspired at least in part by Pancho Villa. In June 1915, Governor James E. Ferguson asked President Woodrow Wilson to station troops in the Big Bend. The request was denied by Maj. Gen. Frederick Funston, who believed such security was a state issue. Although a number of events took place to effect policy change, the tipping point was the May 5, 1916 raid at Glenn Spring. Only nine soldiers had been stationed in the area for protection against the bandits. Estimates vary as to the number of Mexican raiders who attacked the soldiers, from 60 to several hundred. The raid caused a larger military presence in the area. President Wilson mobilized the National Guard to reinforce the Army, and by the end of 1916, an estimated 116,957 guardsmen were stationed along the border from California to Texas. As the mines and wax factories played out after World War I, raids from across the border abated.[26]
During the 1918 influenza epidemic, an African American nurse living in the border area of Brewster County, Viola Pettus, became legendary for her courageous and selfless treatment of anyone with the disease – including raiders and refugees from Mexico, and local members of the Ku Klux Klan[citation needed].
Big Bend
The geographic region known as the Big Bend is a loosely defined section of the Trans-Pecos, although generally agreed to comprise its more southern portions. Characterized by an extremely rugged, arid Chihuahuan Desert landscape, the region takes its name from the sharp northeastward turn made by the Rio Grande nearby. Often noted for its stark beauty, the Big Bend was described by the historian Walter Prescott Webb as "the finest example of earth-wreckage in Texas".[27] It was for this reason that a national park was to be established in the region.
Big Bend National Park was established as a state park in 1933 by the state legislature, and expanded the same year by Governor Miriam A. Ferguson. In 1935, the United States Congress passed legislation founding it as a national park. Big Bend opened to the public in 1944.[28] At just over 800,000 acres, it is the fourteenth largest national park in the United States and is larger than the state of Rhode Island.[29]
Terlingua produced 40% of the nation's quicksilver in 1920, but declining population has since qualified it as a ghost town. In 1962, The Dallas Morning News columnist Francis X. Tolbert published his ode to chili Bowl of Red and founded the Chili Appreciation Society. Fellow columnist Wick Fowler joined in the fun and became a charter member. The World Championship Chili Cookoff at Terlingua began as a tongue-in-cheek challenge between Fowler and humorist H. Allen Smith in 1967 and has become a November tradition, celebrated across the state and nation. On the first Saturday in November Terlingua now hosts two competing international chili championships: the Terlingua International Chili Championship, and the Original Terlingua International Chili Cookoff.[31]
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 6,192 square miles (16,040 km2), of which 6,184 square miles (16,020 km2) are land and 8.5 square miles (22 km2) (0.1%) are covered by water.[32] It is the largest county in Texas by area. The only substantial water is half the width of the Rio Grande.
The county's area is larger than the combined area of Delaware and Rhode Island, and larger than area of the individual states Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island.
The Roadian Age of the Permian Period of geological time is named for rock strata in Road Canyon in the northern part of the county.[33]
The Wordian Age of the Permian Period is probably named for the Word Ranch in the Glass Mountains, also in the northern part.[34]
About 39.4% of Brewster County is classified as having a hot arid desert climate (KöppenBWh). The remainder has a semiarid steppe climate with 32.1% experiencing a cold steppe climate (Köppen BSk), while 28.5% is assigned as a hot steppe climate (Köppen BSh).[35] Temperatures are coolest and rainfall most abundant in the county's northern highlands and in the upper elevations of the Chisos Mountains in the south. In the southern lowlands along the Rio Grande, snowfall is uncommon, rainfall much reduced, and summer high temperatures can be extreme. Throughout the county, precipitation falls mostly from May through October with the remainder of the year predominantly dry.
Alpine is the headquarters of the Brewster County Sheriff's Office. The current elected Sheriff is Ronny Dodson. The County Sheriff's Office conducts patrols and criminal investigations across the county including the incorporated City of Alpine.
Media
In 1985, there was a daily subscription of, in the county: 483 for the San Angelo Standard Times, 1.1% of its total circulation; and 270 for the Odessa American, making up 0.7% of its total circulation.[55]
In 1985, KVLF-AM, in Alpine, was the only radio station licensed in Brewster County. An individual quoted in a Federal Communications Report stated that in daylight hours it was possible to get radio from Fort Stockton, Texas.[55]
Politics
Despite its substantial Hispanic population, Brewster County is Republican leaning in presidential elections, though not as strongly Republican as other rural counties in the Trans-Pecos region or West Texas. No candidate has won the county with double digit margins since George W. Bush in 2000, and the last non-Republican candidate (as of 2020) to win the county was Barack Obama in 2008. However, unlike the rest of southern Texas, the county swung towards Biden in the 2020 election, albeit by less than one percent with both candidates gaining in vote percentage.
United States presidential election results for Brewster County, Texas[56]
^ abcKohout, Martin Donell (June 12, 2010). "Brewster County, Texas". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Folsom, Bradley (July 23, 2015). "La Junta de los Ríos". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Kohout, Martin Donell (June 15, 2010). "Kokernot Spring". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Chipman, Donald E (June 15, 2010). "Pedro de Rábago y Terán". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Blake, Robert Bruce (June 15, 2010). "Hugo Oconór". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Hewitt, Harry P (June 15, 2010). "Edvard Emil (Emilio) Langberg". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Klepper, Dan (2009). 100 Classic Hikes Texas: Panhandle Plains / Pineywoods / Gulf Coast / South Texas Plains / Hill Country / Big Bend Country / Prairies & Lakes. Mountaineers Books. pp. 170–172. ISBN978-1-59485-075-2.
^"Alpine, Texas". Texas Escapes. Texas Escapes – Blueprints For Travel, LLC. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Thompson, Richard A (June 12, 2010). "Camp Pena Colorado". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Ochoa, Ruben E (June 15, 2010). "August Santleben". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Kohout, Martin Donell (June 15, 2010). "Alfred Stevens Gage". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Kohout, Martin Donell (June 9, 2010). "A. S. Gage Ranches". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Ramos, Mary G; Reavis, Dick; Vandivier, Kevin (2004). Compass American Guides: Texas, 3rd Edition. Compass America Guides. p. 66. ISBN978-0-676-90502-1.
^Metz, Leon Claire (2002). The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters. Facts on File. pp. 94–95. ISBN978-0-8160-4543-3.
^Kohout, Martin Donell (June 15, 2010). "Joseph Daniel Jackson". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Peterson's (2008). Colleges in the South: Compare Colleges in Your Region. Peterson's. p. 194. ISBN978-0-7689-2695-8.
^"Terlingua". Texas Escapes. Texas Escapes – Blueprints For Travel, LLC. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Kohout, Martin Donell (June 15, 2010). "Glenn Spring Raid". Handbook of Texas Online. Texas State Historical Association. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^Nelson, Barney (2002). God's Country or Devil's Playground. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. p. 66. ISBN978-0-292-75580-2.
^"Big Bend". National Park Service. Retrieved December 13, 2010.
^ abFederal Communications Commission Reports: Decisions, Reports, and Orders of the Federal Communications Commission of the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1985. p. 182.
^Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.[50]
Further reading
Ragsdale, Kenneth Baxter; Frantz, Joe B (1984). Quicksilver: Terlingua and the Chisos Mining Company. TAMU Press. ISBN978-0-89096-188-9.
United States
Texas
