It was taken from us once—not again
My grandmother, Eva May Green, grew up in what is now Big Bend National Park. Initially, her parents, William and Molly Green, settled the family at McKinney Springs. Later, they bought a ranch at Dugout (now known in the park as Dug Out Wells). My great-grandfather planted many of the trees in that miraculous oasis, including the date tree that astounds so many visitors. My grandmother played, worked, and grew into womanhood under the ever-watchful gaze of the Sierra del Carmen.
I adored hearing my grandmother’s stories about growing up in the Big Bend. She spoke of seeing the “ghost lights” bouncing through the desert and liked to say, “They don’t bother us, so I reckon we shouldn’t bother them.” She told of dances and parties and bandits and school days. Her tales of driving Old Ore Road in a Model T with a crank engine and what basically amounts to bicycle tires puts me and other offroad enthusiasts (with our 4WD-drive, high clearance vehicles) to shame.
After attending Sul Ross to earn her teaching certificate, my grandmother taught school at both Dugout and at the candelilla wax factory owned by my great-uncle. Many of the children she taught were Mexican children whose fathers worked to extract wax from the candelilla plants. Eventually, Eva May met and married a charming young cowboy and moved to a ranch outside of El Paso, where my mom was born. Later, they retired to Uvalde. But Dugout was always her home.
When the U.S. government purchased the land to turn it into a national park, my grandmother was bitter. She didn’t think kindly about the park and refused to cooperate when asked to sketch the general floor plan of her childhood home to help preserve the history of the settlers. “You shouldn’t have torn it down in the first place,” she said.
We once had a family reunion at Dugout, complete with box lunches from the restaurant in the Basin. I was just a kid, but I remember the old folks chatting beneath the trees while the windmill creaked in the distance, a reminder of what was lost.
My mother lived in the light of gratitude. Maybe the land wasn’t ours personally, but it was still ours. Big Bend National Park belonged to everyone. It was protected, and would always be there for her children and grandchildren.
Forty-three years ago, my husband proposed to me on the Pine Canyon Trail, and for the past 30-odd years, we have religiously brought our five kids to Big Bend National Park. Three years ago, my eldest proposed to his wife at sunrise at the Langford Hot Springs. And as I write this, we are preparing for my younger son’s wedding in Terlingua. Following the celebration, we will make the pilgrimage to Dugout so he and his bride can receive the blessings of our ancestors. We will have my little grandson with us—his first trip to Big Bend.
This place was taken from us once, with the promise that it would always be protected and preserved. With the promise that we would always have access to the site of our family homestead at Dugout and to the cemetery at Glenn Springs, where the grave of my distant cousin sits high on a ridge overlooking the valley. Along with everyone else who seeks it, we were promised the solitude and isolation of Black Gap, the River Road, and Santa Elena Canyon.
That promise is being broken. This beautiful place is being taken from us again. And it’s being taken from all of you.
Don’t let the wall go up. Please sign the petitions. Please call your reps. Even if you’re not in Texas, Big Bend National Park is sacred. And it belongs to us all.
Carol Tokar Pavliska
Floresville
Thanks given for local reporting on the wall
Sam Karas’ reporting on tri-county border issues is the only way I learn anything about our potential local border wall construction and the damages it will cause. I don’t find this information in the New York Times, I find it reading the Sentinel.
Thank you for the in-depth articles, which are obviously borne of hours of interviews, drive time and research. The paper and Ms. Karas are providing us with critical information.
Bridget Weiss
Marfa
Preserve the tapestry of the river corridor
Archaeological and historical studies teach us about the significance of the Rio Grande corridor. After the close of the last ice age, the vast expanse of landscape through which the Rio Grande flows provided natural resources needed to sustain human populations. The moisture and fertile soil sustained a farming and ranching economy. The vast gravel deposits carried by the river provided high quality stone that prehistoric people used for making tools. As the landscape became more of a desert, the moisture in the river valley was what sustained settlement and survival for the people of the region for well over 10,000 years.
Human settlements occur in the highest density along the river corridor. This zone of moisture contains prehistoric tool stone gathering sites along almost the entire land surface. Spanish explorers passing through recorded numerous Indian farming encampments and village sites concentrated on the mesas overlooking the river flood plain. European settlers were likewise drawn to this fertile valley and established their ranches, farms and communities here.
Prehistoric pit house villages, early Spanish military encampments, presidio fortresses, and 20th century settlements constitute the rich tapestry that illustrates how people used the river corridor as a place that united people rather than divided them. For the past 200 or so years out of the last 10,000, the river corridor has been a gathering place for human survival in the harsh desert environment. Even today, some of our richest agricultural lands line the river valley. This is where floodplain and irrigation agriculture feeds the population of the entire nation.
Stone and adobe houses, livestock pens, threshing floors where grain was winnowed, cemeteries and grave sites where the dead were buried, and a vast network of roads and trails form the rich cultural landscape that exists in the river corridor. The river that stretches from Colorado down through New Mexico to the Big Bend region of Texas has always been a complex trade route that supports the economy of all of the settlements that line the valley floor. If a person walks the length of the river valley, it is virtually impossible to not walk from one farm or ranch site and suddenly cross a prehistoric village site. These places are also where cemeteries and graves hold remains of those people who have lived and died in the region over that vast time span.
Likewise, the major tributary streams flowing into the Rio Grande are similarly lined with the evidence of human occupation in the Big Bend region for the last 10,000 years and more.
Therefore, a massive wall built down the length of this rich cultural landscape will literally rip apart the cultural tapestry woven by human history. A river that has united many cultures over this long time span has only recently been deemed a border that divides people.
Today, Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Amistad Reservoir, and Seminole Canyon State Park provide places and opportunities where Americans can gather and learn about the rich history of our nation and its past. This area also contains world heritage class rock art sites. A rich economy exists here because of these national and state treasures.
The Big Bend region preserves the most ruggedly spectacular scenery in all of the state of Texas. Highway 170 that stretches from Candelaria at the north to Terlingua at the south is deemed to be the most scenic highway in the state of Texas.
A wall that is blasted and carved into this landscape not only degrades the scenic qualities that American citizens value, it will also rip apart the tapestry of human history that lies within the Rio Grande river corridor. The economic loss of the farms and ranches upriver and downriver of the state and national protected areas is unnecessary. Likewise, there will be severe economic loss within the communities surrounding these protected areas as tourism becomes unviable due to the construction of a wall.
The Big Bend Sector of U.S. Customs and Border Protection operational area is 165,154 square miles. The sector is responsible for patrolling 517 miles of river front along the Rio Grande that is the international boundary between the United States and Mexico. The sector’s border boundary is almost one-quarter of the country’s Southwest border. This sector has experienced decreasing numbers of illegal border crossings. The implementation of high quality surveillance technology and increased presence of agents along the border has proven to be a most effective deterrent to illegal immigration.
The construction of a hardened steel border wall is a travesty that is unnecessary, and it is avoidable.
Thomas Alex
Archaeologist and historian
