$Unique_ID{bob00992} $Pretitle{} $Title{The Big Bend Part III} $Subtitle{} $Author{Tyler, Ronnie C.} $Affiliation{National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior} $Subject{big bend company mine quicksilver terlingua wax mining texas marfa see pictures see figures } $Date{1984} $Log{See Chisos Mine*0099201.scf See Candelilla Factory*0099202.scf } Title: The Big Bend Book: Chapter 5: Settling The Big Bend Author: Tyler, Ronnie C. Affiliation: National Park Service;U.S. Department Of The Interior Date: 1984 Part III Quicksilver Although reports of quicksilver in the Big Bend had circulated for years, no one had ever taken them seriously. The Indians had used cinnabar for their war paint and for the red pigments in paintings that can still be seen in scattered shelters of the Big Bend. In 1847 Dr. Ferdinand Romer, a German scientist visiting Texas, traded an Indian a leather lasso for a small quantity of quicksilver, or mercury. Both Texans and Mexicans heard reports before 1850 of the quicksilver, but no serious explorations were undertaken until 1884 when Juan Acosta reportedly showed a specimen to Ignatz Kleinman, who operated a general store in Presidio, Texas. Kleinman took up a claim near what became known as California Hill and went to work. He failed to find sufficient quantities to make the mine profitable, but did interest a California company in taking over the search. They abandoned the attempt after finding little ore, although they were on top of one of the richest fields in the country. The site of their operations became known as California Hill when one of the miners carved that inscription on a rock. Quicksilver mines quickly dotted the landscape around Terlingua. Mining began there in 1894 when George W. Manless and Charles Allen investigated the rumors of rich quicksilver deposits in the region. They found the deposits about 90 miles south of Alpine, at that time little more than a station on the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Marfa and Mariposa Mining Company, named after the town and Mariposa County, California, where a huge quicksilver mine was located, was the first to profitably extract quicksilver from the Big Bend. Organized in 1896, the company took up a claim near present day Terlingua, where the California company had failed, and extracted over 9,000 flasks of mercury (3 quarts, or 76 pounds per flask) by 1903. The gross sale for the company in 1901 and 1902 was more than $350,000. After the "easy" ore had been mined, however, the company disbanded. At its height the Marfa and Mariposa Company employed 1,000 to 1,500 persons. The four or five white families lived in stone houses belonging to the company, but the Mexicans lived in tents or crude stone huts. The laborers were paid with a punch-out check redeemable anytime at the company store or in cash at the end of the month. Although the store stocked only the barest necessities, it did a good business. Sugar, corn, beans, and flour were brought in by the carload. Work clothing, a few bolts of calico, blue denim, and shirting also were stocked. The store's revenue was usually $100,000 to $150,000 annually. A popular saying in Terlingua, reported C. A. Hawley, the company bookkeeper, was that the mine was a silver mine, but the store was a gold mine. The ore proved to be rich but the mines were almost inaccessible. The wagon road from Marfa, about 100 miles to the northwest, was at best a difficult route. Six miles from the mine it became impossible for wagons. The supplies had to be loaded on pack mules for the trip across dry and badly eroded paths. Everything except fuel (the plentiful mesquite trees) had to be hauled in. Several Mexicans made a little money hauling goods to Terlingua and quicksilver to Marfa with their Studebaker wagons. Strong enough to carry 3 to 4 tons, the wagons required 10 days for a round trip to Marfa. There was little profit in the freighting, for the Mexicans charged only a half-cent a pound and the only thing they could carry out was quicksilver. The first miners employed only primitive methods and used shafts no deeper than 200 feet. After the ore was brought to the surface it was loaded into a small car and transported to an aerial tramway. The car was then hand-pushed back to the mine, while the ore was transported over the tramway to the ore crusher, half a mile away. From the crusher, walnut sized chunks of ore were taken to the smelter. The brick furnace measured about 20 feet square and 40 feet high. Two or three weeks of continuous heating was required for the furnace to reach 360 degrees, the temperature at which quicksilver vaporizes from ore. The fumes went out the top of the furnace through a series of 8 or 10 slightly smaller condensers, connected by a pipe. A partition alternately extended from the ceiling of the condenser almost to the floor, then from the floor almost to the ceiling, forcing the smoke from the furnace to describe an upside down arch in passing through each condenser. The quicksilver gathered in the condensers and ran into buckets. A smoke stack 30 to 40 feet high attached to the last condenser carried off the rest of the vapor and smoke. Work in the mines was difficult. The miners worked 10 hours a day, most of the labor underground and all of it manual. The ore was loosened by pick and hammer and gathered up by shovel. The work was also dangerous. In February 1908 a blast killed one man and seriously injured another at the Shafter mine. Even the candles used to light the shafts proved dangerous, for they often gave off too little light for the men to avoid open shafts and other hazards. "Miner's consumption," caused by the polluted air, killed several workers every year. There was no hospital but the company employed a doctor who cared for all the employees. Although the treatment ostensibly was free, the Mexican laborers had one day's wages per month withheld for the medical fund, but white men only $1. The men worked 7 days a week for $1 to $1.50 per day. Sometimes an exceptional worker would be paid as much as $2 per day. Yet C. A. Hawley, the bookkeeper for Marfa and Mariposa Company, got $100 a month plus free rent and goods from the company store at cost. Several other companies competed with the Marfa and Mariposa Company. Howard E. Perry, a Chicago businessman, organized the Chisos Mining Company in 1902. By 1905 the Terlingua Mining Company, Colquitt Tigner Mining Company, Texas Almaden Mining Company, Big Bend Cinnabar Mining Company, and Excelsior Mining Company were all in operation in and around Terlingua. When O. W. Williams saw Terlingua in early 1902 he noted that considerable improvement had been made in the last 2 years. The companies employed probably 300 men to haul wood, water, and ore, and work the furnaces. The freight teams kept the road dusty as they brought in supplies and hauled quicksilver to the railhead at Marfa. Texas soon was the number two quicksilver producing State in the Nation. Perry's Chisos Mining Company lasted longer and produced more than any other. Perry bought his land in the Big Bend in 1887 and turned down several offers to sell it at a slight profit before he decided to investigate. He found that his land contained quicksilver and set out to mine it. After opening the mine in 1902, he returned to Chicago to direct his affairs there, leaving the mine in control of a succession of managers. [See Chisos Mine: Water was free at the Chisos Mine, but everyone had to come to the tank to get it. The house commanding the view of Terlingua belonged to Howard E. Perry, the mine owner.] Perry made several changes in his operation. At first using the crude methods of the Marfa and Mariposa Mining Company, he improved his equipment, enabling his men to dig deeper and extract more ore. James Lafarelle reported in 1910 that the depth had already reached 520 feet and that they were planning to go to 1,000 feet in the new shafts. The quicksilver industry received a good boost when James Norman took some Terlingua ore to the Saint Louis World's Fair in 1904. The specimens were so good that several companies filed claims in the region, but most were never more than small-time or non-producing companies. Capitalized at $500,000 when it opened, for example, the Terlingua Mining Company installed a 45-ton furnace, but fell on hard times and was worth only $35,025 when it closed in 1903. Perry's success drew other prospectors to the Big Bend. They quickly learned that the secret of his success was that his tract was the richest in the region. The quicksilver ore was limited to a relatively small area near Terlingua. Within an area about 14 miles long by 4 miles wide, 30 or more mines were dug, but most of the 150,000 or so flasks of mercury produced came from about 6 mines. The Chisos Company produced more than two-thirds of that total. The Marfa and Mariposa Company produced between 20,000 and 30,000 flasks, leaving all the other companies with a total of less than 30,000 flasks. Today Terlingua is one of the best known ghost towns in the Southwest and a monument to the lively industry that once flourished in the Big Bend. The site of the World Champion Chili Cookoff, a highly promoted and colorful celebration dedicated to boosterism and local chauvinism, it has also been designated a historic site by the State. The deserted general store, post office, movie house, jailhouse, and church suggest the activities that Terlinguans participated in each week during the heyday of the village. But the nearby cemetery is a reminder that life in the mines was hard, for most of the gravestones tell of those who died young. Dominating the entire perspective is Perry's abandoned house. Located on a hill overlooking the village, this sturdy, two-story building is symbolic of what has happened in Terlingua. From the front porch one can see the deserted mine shafts that brought hundreds of workers to the Big Bend early in the century, and in the distance Santa Elena Canyon and the Chisos Mountains, the impressive landscape which attracts visitors today. Mariscal Mine The discovery at Terlingua sent prospectors searching throughout the Big Bend for quicksilver ore. The site that became known as Mariscal Mine was discovered in 1900 by Martin Solis in Mariscal Mountain, just a few miles north of the river. It was not effectively mined until a store owner from Boquillas, D. E. Lindsey, filed a claim on Solis' site and began operation of what he called the Lindsey Mine. His profits were cut considerably because he transported ore via pack mules to the Chisos Mining Company for refining. He finally sold out to T. P. Barry and Isaac Singer, who, in turn, sold out to W. K. Ellis in 1916. Ellis installed his own refining plant and between July 1917 and May 1919 shipped 894 flasks of mercury. When the price of quicksilver dropped after World War I, Ellis sold his holdings to the Mariscal Mining Company, a New York corporation that worked the mines until 1927 when it finally declared bankruptcy. The mine was sold at a sheriff's auction in 1936. William D. Burcham, the company's president, tried to open it again during World War II, but produced only 97 flasks of mercury and soon closed it. Today the mine and old buildings are one of the more interesting remains in the southern part of the national park. Other Settlers Settlers came to the Big Bend for various reasons. Max A. Ernst immigrated from Germany to Texas in 1873 at age 16. He lived in Alpine a few years before moving to La Noria, on Tornillo Creek. In 1898 he leased a section of land containing a waterhole called the Big Tinaja. He established a small store by the same name, and later became justice of the peace, coroner, law enforcer, marriage bureau, notary public, and postmaster of Boquillas, Tex. For a time Kit Williams of Louisiana acted as postmaster, because Ernst could not legally hold the jobs of mail carrier and postmaster simultaneously, though he would relinquish neither. Jesse Deemer, later a storekeeper in Boquillas, was a German mining operator working in northern Mexico when he first arrived in the Big Bend. Cipriano Hernandez, a native of Caniargo, Chihuahua, and an employee in the Shafter mines, moved to a plot of land near Santa Elena Canyon in 1903. He ran a small supply store in a community called Santa Helena, Tex., until 1914 when the name was changed to Castolon. Today the small village of Santa Elena, Chihuahua, is located across the river from Castolon. Several persons moved to the Big Bend for their health. Milton Faver might have been the first one, arriving in the early 1850's to alleviate a severe case of tuberculosis. After the railroad linked the Trans-Pecos with the rest of Texas, the word spread quickly. J. R. Landrum, who later managed Ernst's store and post office, suffered from chronic bad health and hoped that the dry climate of West Texas would help him. So did J. O. Langford, a malaria sufferer who took up a claim at Hot Springs on the Rio Grande in 1909. A skinny, man with thin lips, deep-set eyes, and a pleasing personality, Langford decided to make a health resort out of the hot springs. He received plenty of publicity from the Marfa and Alpine editors, who published accounts of those who had been cured as a result of the treatment and his plans for the resort. There were even suggestions that a second resort be built at another set of hot springs near Castolon on the Mexican side of the river. T. J. Miller, who operated a small store at San Vicente, came to the Big Bend hoping that his wife's health would improve. By the late 1890's there were enough people scattered throughout the Big Bend that two second-class roads were opened, one from Marathon to Boquillas, the other from Alpine to Terlingua. When a man named Pitts drove his 4-cylinder Acme over the hills from Marfa to Presidio in 1908, he received excited attention from the townspeople along the route and praise from the editor of the New Era. At Shafter the school children were dismissed from class and followed the car through the dusty streets. "Actual running time to Presidio, counting out stops, 70 miles in 3 hours 53 minutes," declared the editor. "Chauffeur Pitts states the roads out of Marfa are as good as any in the state . . . ." Guayule As the new age of chemistry dawned, scientists found uses for Big Bend plants. "Guayule, the rubber plant, formerly despised and useless, has produced a few hundred million dollars worth of rubber in Mexico and Texas," reported the editor of the Alpine Avalanche cite in 1911. "It has brought riches to those who took advantage of the opportunity when they were asked to invest in the guayule rubber enterprises." Several factories were established along the railroad, but the industry did not last long. The guayule was soon exhausted, and Big Benders turned to other ways of earning a living. Wax Making The candelilla plant provided the raw material; unemployed Mexicans supplied the muscle; white men usually provided the capital. In 1911 Oscar Pacius, a director of the Continental Wax Company of Little Rock, Ark., visited Marfa and Alpine and announced his intention of establishing 10 wax factories in the Big Bend. The company already had four producing factories in Mexico, he explained. Pacius declared that his company expected to be able to make about $600 per ton of wax. By the time he reached Alpine in the fall of 1911 the name of his company had been changed to the Rio Grande Wax Company, but the enthusiasm had not diminished. Another important producer was C. D. Wood, who established factories at McKinney Springs and Glenn Springs in 1911. [See Candelilla Factory: This factory near Candelaria produced wax from the candelilla plant and was photographed about 1918.] Wax making is still a major industry in the Big Bend on both sides of the border. In Mexico the government monopolizes production, assigning quotas to producers and guaranteeing them a certain income each year. In the United States a small number of firms buy most of the independently produced wax. Because the Mexican wax makers have no market for their product after they fill the government quota, some observers claim that smuggling wax into the United States is common. Although candelilla wax has been in demand since 1911, the process by which the pure wax is secured has changed little. The plant, which grows wild in the Big Bend, is heated in a mixture of water and sulfuric acid. When the wax loosens from the plant, it floats to the top of the vat, and is scooped off and put into barrels to harden. It is used in candles, phonograph records, insulation of electrical wires, leather and wood polishes, as an agent in the manufacture of celluloid, and as a waterproofing. Early in the century it was an important sealing wax. Today most of the wax goes to the chewing gum industry. Ruins of old wax-rendering operations can be found throughout the park, and wax factories still operate outside the park. Fur Traders A common frontier livelihood that might not be expected in the Big Bend was fur-trapping along the Rio Grande. T. M. Meler floated down the river trapping beavers at the turn of the century. Perhaps the best known trapper in the Big Bend was James McMahon, who escorted Hill through the canyons in 1899. He lived well into this century, trading furs for goods at Johnson's Trading Post, in the southern part of what is now the national park. The trappers brought the furs of fox, coyote, wildcat, and skunk into the border trading posts. Often they skinned goats to supplement their income. Many pelts were captured in the mountains along fur trails that stretched sometimes 100 miles through the wilderness. As barter, Elmo Johnson offered wood, other kinds of fur, chino grass, ropes, and various finished items or food. Regular fur traders, in fact, made up his best customers. The Unwritten Code By the turn of the century the Big Bend was fairly well settled. Small villages had grown up near waterholes - Tornillo Creek, La Noria, Glenn Springs, and Robber's Roost - and along the Rio Grande. A number of farms flourished in the Lajitas-Castolon area. Ranching, mining, wax making, merchandising, law enforcement, and the military provided a living for the early settlers. Society began to organize into various groups. Livestock associations, promoting pure-bred cattle, exerted strong influences. Rev. William B. Bloys, the "Cowboy Preacher," held annual camp meetings in Skillman's Grove. Soon Bloys Camp Meeting was an event that not many Big Benders missed. Disciples of Christ, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians attended the affair. The early settlers gradually evolved a code of unwritten laws that governed their community. Probably the most obvious one was the frontier's raw, aggressive brand of equality. A white man was accepted at face value. No questions were asked about the years before he came to the Big Bend; no information was usually volunteered. Texas had much the same reputation during its youthful years when "GTT" meant "Gone to Texas," usually for a bad reason. In the Big Bend it was accepted that a man might be using an assumed name. Thus there are several stories about Milton Faver's background, including the possibility that he was a murderer and that he had been jilted by his Mexican girlfriend. C. A. Hawley was hardly surprised when a neighbor calling himself Tom White came into the post office at Terlingua and claimed a pension check addressed to John M. Southard. He cashed the check with no questions asked when White explained that he was Southard and had changed his name when he moved to the Big Bend. Perhaps the point is better made by the cowboy who, when conversation around the campfire lagged, challenged his companions to create a little excitement by telling their real names. The fact that white men were accepted as they were emphasizes a second unwritten law of the Big Bend: dark-skinned men were not accepted at all. Racial prejudice in various forms was evident to the newcomer. Hawley, a mid-westerner unaccustomed to the racial segregation of the South and Southwest, was surprised to discover that the Mexican stage driver rode with the whites but did not eat with them. Working for the Terlingua mining companies, he also learned that Mexicans were employed for menial jobs and manual labor, but not for the management positions. "In this state," a Brewster County lawyer explained, "we have one set of laws for white people and one for Mexicans, all in the same words and in the same book." Prejudice tainted every relationship between white and brown, even to the point that Hawley, as manager of the company store, intimidated a poverty stricken Mexican woman into buying her groceries at more infrequent intervals and in larger quantities because he had grown tired of selling her a small amount each day. Only later did he learn that she bought meagerly because she usually did not have enough money to buy in larger measures. When a ranch or store was robbed, the authorities immediately assumed that Mexicans were to blame. Pilares, Chihuahua, was attacked without warning in both 1917 and 1918 by Americans seeking revenge for raids on Texas ranches. Several residents were killed, including the mayor of nearby Candelaria. The amazing explanation, accepted without qualm by the Anglo-Americans, was that "anyone living in that particular area, and those who were familiar with it, were aware that no innocent Mexicans lived in Candelaria and Pilares, Mexico." An army lieutenant searching for bandits in northern Mexico revealed a similar attitude. Flying over the Rio Conchos, he saw four mounted horsemen. "I shot a few rounds at them from about 1,000 feet altitude (too high to hit them), to see if they would return the fire. Since they dashed into the high brush without responding, I concluded they were not bandits, but Mexican cowboys. The only way to tell a bandit from a cowboy was to use such a test. The prejudice extended to Negroes, but had less opportunity for expression because there were few blacks in the Big Bend. The editor of the "Alpine Avalanche" opposed further Negro immigration into Alpine in 1909. Under the headline, "Not Wanted in Alpine," he editorialized that they would disrupt the community. He also suggested a few months later that those already in the city would have to behave in an exemplary manner or be run off. At that, Alpine was hardly different from any other Texas city of the day. A third unwritten code, which lasted well into the 20th century, required everyone to arm and defend himself. A peaceful man who disdained liquor and "gun-totin," Hawley abhorred such practices. But he had little influence. As justice of the peace, he frequently asked men charged with violation of the law why they carried weapons. Their invariable response was that no one would respect them if they went unarmed. They apparently feared the social pressure more than the consequences. The result of disputes involving a deliberate or insulting wrong usually was a gunfight. Hawley remembered hearing the calm pronouncement of final judgment several times: "Well, somebody has got to be killed." This unwritten rule was responsible for the death of Roselle Pulliam, a Big Bend rancher who crossed paths with Jim Gillespie, a well-known cowboy. After purchasing hundreds of cattle in Mexico, Gillespie brought them into Texas, probably without paying all the duty required by law. He cut the fences as he crossed Pulliam's ranch, and Pulliam sought revenge by reporting the approximate number of cattle Gillespie had brought in to the Customs officers. The officials impounded the herd, waiting for the question to be settled. Gillespie's consequent grudge against Pulliam could be settled only by a gunfight. Pulliam moved to New Mexico to avoid the confrontation, but the episode ended tragically when he returned to Alpine to visit his father and Gillespie killed him. It would have been virtually impossible to have secured a conviction, said Hawley, because the murderer had followed the unwritten laws of the country. In this instance, the jury never had the chance because Gillespie himself was killed before his case came to trial. Law Enforcement The arrival of the railroad spurred the growth of several towns in the Big Bend: Marfa, Alpine, Marathon. As the unruly element moved in with progress, so did the few individuals who became lawmen. The Texas Rangers patrolled the region throughout the last quarter of the 19th century. Their famous Frontier Battalion did everything from chasing Indians and bandits to accompanying surveyors down the Rio Grande. After retiring from the Rangers, Capt. Charles L. Nevill remained in the Big Bend, first as sheriff of Presidio County, then as a rancher. An even better known lawman who settled in the Big Bend was James Gillett, who retired from the Rangers to become marshall in El Paso. After Nevill and Gillett bought a small ranch in the Big Bend together, it was not difficult for Nevill to convince Gillett that he had been a lawman long enough. He left his marshall's post to become foreman of the G4 Ranch, which was owned by the Ganos and was near enough to his own ranch that he could also care for it. Another popular Ranger who spent a few years in the Big Bend with Nevill was Jeff Milton, who left the service in 1883 and went on to serve with distinction in the U.S. Customs Service. D. E. Lindsey, the man who filed the claim on Mariscal Mine, first came to the Big Bend as a mounted inspector for the U.S. Customs Service. But the man who perhaps best symbolizes law enforcement in the Big Bend is Thomas Creed Taylor, who was stationed at Pena Colorado, near Marathon, shortly after the turn of the century. He quit the Rangers in 1904 and ranched until 1918, when he joined the Customs Service. In 1942 he was elected sheriff of Presidio County, and held that office for 4 years. The man who later became known as the "father of the Big Bend National Park" also initially came as a law enforcement officer. Born in Colorado County, Tex., in 1871, Everett Ewing Townsend joined the Texas Rangers at age 19, but resigned after only 18 months with the Frontier Battalion. Moving to Presidio, he joined the U.S. Customs Service and became familiar with the Big Bend while fulfilling his job of scouting along the borders for smugglers. The enthusiasm he gained for the Big Bend while employed by Customs was the foundation of the Big Bend National Park. Americans came to the Big Bend in three phases. First, the traders and explorers passed through, finding the region neither hospitable nor available, for the Indians controlled it. Then, the U.S. Army and its associates moved into the Fort Davis area. Only vital occupations such as beef contracting could flourish. Not until the Big Bend had been pacified did the third phase - miners, farmers, ranchers, merchants, health seekers, and settlers - begin. Another barrier was isolation. As the Big Bend was drawn into Texas commerce through the Chihuahua traders and later through the railroad, more people settled there - and with them an unsavory element of frontier society.