How a Texas ranching town with 1,800 people became one of America’s great art destinations

Marfa’s art, mystery and wide-open skies

Marfa sits on a high desert plateau in far West Texas, nearly 4,830 feet up and surrounded by three mountain ranges. Fewer than 1,800 people live here.

The nearest major airport is three hours away in El Paso.

By every measure, this is the middle of nowhere, and yet artists, architects, and stargazers keep making the drive. Something out here pulls people in, and it starts long before you reach the city limits sign.

How a railroad water stop became a global art town

Marfa began in 1883 as a water stop and freight headquarters for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway.

The name came from a character in a Jules Verne novel, reportedly suggested by a railroad engineer’s wife. By 1885, it had become the seat of Presidio County.

Fort D.A. Russell went up in 1911 during the Mexican Revolution and stayed active until 1946. Then, in the early 1970s, a minimalist artist named Donald Judd left New York City and changed everything.

Walk through Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation

Judd founded the Chinati Foundation in 1986 on 340 acres of the old fort grounds, and his goal was to put art, architecture, and land together in a way that couldn’t be separated.

The permanent collection spans 100 aluminum works and 15 outdoor concrete pieces by Judd, light installations by Dan Flavin, and 25 sculptures by John Chamberlain.

Most of the work lives in converted military buildings spread across the property. You can take a guided tour or explore on your own, but reserve your spot in advance.

Step inside the spaces where Judd lived and worked

The Judd Foundation preserves Donald Judd’s personal spaces in downtown Marfa, and a guided visit gets you inside his residence, studios, and a library of more than 13,000 volumes.

You’ll also see his early paintings from the 1950s and ’60s, furniture he designed himself, and works by other major 20th-century artists he collected. These aren’t museum recreations.

They’re the actual rooms where he lived and worked until his death in 1994. Reservations are required, so plan ahead.

Free art at Ballroom Marfa and two dozen galleries

A converted 1927 dancehall in the middle of town now runs as Ballroom Marfa, a nonprofit art space that opened in 2003. It rotates exhibitions across visual art, film, music, and performance, and everything is free.

Beyond that, Marfa has close to two dozen galleries showing local, national, and international artists. Downtown is flat and walkable, so you can cover a lot of ground in a single afternoon without moving your car once.

The fake Prada store sitting alone in the desert

About 26 miles northwest of Marfa on U.S. Route 90, near the small town of Valentine, a Prada storefront stands alone in the open desert.

It went up on Oct. 1, 2005, as a permanent sculpture by artists Elmgreen and Dragset. Real Prada shoes and handbags from the fall 2005 collection sit behind the glass, but the door has never opened.

The Texas Department of Transportation reclassified it as a museum in 2014. It has since become one of the most photographed roadside artworks in the country.

The mystery lights that nobody has fully explained

Nine miles east of Marfa on U.S. 90, there’s a viewing area built in 2003 with benches, binoculars, and restrooms.

People come at night to watch the Marfa Lights, a phenomenon first reported in 1883 by a cowhand named Robert Reed Ellison, who thought he was watching Apache campfires.

The lights appear as glowing orbs near the Chinati Mountains, sometimes splitting, merging, and shifting color.

Scientists have linked many sightings to headlights on U.S. Highway 67, but some of what people see out there still has no explanation.

The courthouse with a damaged Lady Justice on top

The Presidio County Courthouse went up in 1886, designed by San Antonio architect Alfred Giles in the Second Empire style. Local brick and stone went into the walls, and the final cost ran about $60,000.

A grand ball marked its completion on New Year’s Day 1887.

The exterior is pink stucco, the dome is topped by a statue of Lady Justice, and the interior woodwork is pecan.

The scales and sword blade on that statue are gone, reportedly shot off by someone unhappy with local justice. You can see the building from nearly anywhere in town.

The school that kept Latino kids separate for 56 years

From 1909 to 1965, Marfa’s Hispanic and Mexican American children attended the Blackwell School while white children went elsewhere.

The original adobe schoolhouse and a 1927 classroom building called the Band Hall both still stand. Alumni formed the Blackwell School Alliance in 2006 to keep them from being demolished.

On July 17, 2024, the site became a National Historic Site, only the second National Park Service site dedicated to modern Latino history.

It’s open to the public with limited hours, with photographs and stories from the people who were there.

The Milky Way is visible here with just your eyes

Marfa sits inside the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve, the largest certified dark sky reserve in the world. It covers more than 15,000 square miles across three Texas counties and into northern Mexico.

On a clear night, you can stand outside town and see the Milky Way without a telescope. The Marfa Public Library loans out telescopes if you want a closer look.

The McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, about 40 minutes away, holds public star parties that run through the night.

Desert drives that stretch from the mountains to the Rio Grande

Marfa sits in the Chihuahuan Desert, the largest desert in North America.

The terrain around town runs wide open, with grasslands giving way to rugged mountain ranges and long, clear views in every direction.

Big Bend National Park is about 90 minutes southeast and has hiking, river trips, and canyon country.

Route 170 between Presidio and Lajitas traces the Rio Grande through some of the most dramatic road scenery in the state. The dry air out here means sunrises and sunsets hit different than most places.

Downtown Marfa packs a lot into a few flat blocks

Marfa’s downtown mixes historic adobe buildings with Mexican and West Texas architecture, and you can walk it comfortably. The Marfa and Presidio County Museum covers the area’s ranching, military, and cultural history.

Over at the old fort, some of the buildings still have murals painted by German POWs during World War II, available to see by appointment.

If you time your visit for September, the Marfa Lights Festival brings the town together. Come in October and Chinati Weekend opens parts of the foundation not usually accessible to the public.

Plan your visit to Marfa, Texas

To get to Marfa, you’ll fly into El Paso, rent a car, and drive about three hours east on U.S. 90. The town sits at the junction of U.S. Highways 90 and 67.

A car isn’t optional here. Many businesses keep limited or unpredictable hours, so visiting Thursday through Sunday gives you the best shot at finding things open.

While you’re in the area, Marfa works well as a base for Big Bend National Park, Fort Davis National Historic Site, and the McDonald Observatory.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• Why is there a Prada storefront on a empty Texas highway with the lights always on inside
• The Buffalo Soldiers: how black cavalrymen defeated Apache raids and built telegraph lines across West Texas
• The road to Terlingua gets lonelier by the mile — then a ghost town and dark skies reward you