The History of Big Bend National Park

According to the National Park Service, pictographs and archeological sites show that Native Americans lived for thousands of years in what is now Big Bend National Park. Native groups included the Jornada Mogollon, Chisos, Jumano, Apaches and Comanches. Indian tribes lived in the area from prehistoric times until the mid 1800s. Some inhabitants were nomadic hunter-gatherers, but other tribes were agricultural and sedentary.

Spanish explorers crossed the Rio Grande in the 16th and 17th centuries, looking for gold and silver, but the area remained largely uninhabited by settlers until the early 1900s. Even as other areas of the western United States were being settled, the area now known as Big Bend was too remote and rugged for pioneers. The Chisos Mountains and Chihuahuan Desert created a dry, wild and dangerous landscape.

Ranchers began moving into the region in the 1850s after the Southern Pacific Railroad expanded there. Farming families from Mexico and the U.S. began settling the area in the early 1900s, and they grew cotton and food crops. A community known as Castolon developed, and several buildings from the original town still stand in the park. The buildings include a general store and some adobe houses.

Everett Townsend, a mounted inspector for U.S. Customs, entered the Chisos Mountains in 1894 to track a mule thief. He was so impressed by the view he encountered that he vowed to preserve the region. Townsend became a state representative in 1932, and co-authored a bill the following year to create the Texas Canyons State Park, which was later renamed Big Bend State Park. The name Big Bend comes from the drastic turn that the Rio Grande River takes from a southeastern to northeastern flow.

Townsend's real goal was to make Big Bend a national park, but first it had to be developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Townsend led an expedition to find adequate sources of water for the corps, and they moved in to build roads, trails and cottages in the park. In 1942, the Texas Legislature allocated $1.5 million to acquire private land for the park in the area Townsend had outlined, which totaled 6,000 acres. Big Bend was designated a national park in 1944.

In its first year, Big Bend National Park welcomed 1,409 guests. Today, more than 300,000 people visit the park each year to see its hot springs, majestic canyons, mountain vistas, dozens of creeks and streams, and, of course, the Rio Grande. Aside from continuing erosion and increased haze from pollution, the park has remained largely unchanged since the 1950s. In 1976, the United Nations named Big Bend an International Biosphere Reserve.