Why are 170 people living in a West Texas ghost town in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert

West Texas’s wildest desert town isn’t dead yet

About 170 people live in Terlingua, and most of them chose it on purpose.

This far-west Texas desert town sits in the Chihuahuan Desert between two massive parks, Big Bend National Park to the east and Big Bend Ranch State Park to the west. It looks like a ghost town because it mostly is one.

But every year, tens of thousands of people make the long drive out here, and almost none of them leave disappointed. The reason starts with the ruins.

The mine that built this town and then abandoned it

Cinnabar turned up in the ground here in the mid-1880s, and that changed everything. Cinnabar is the ore you process to get mercury, and Chicago industrialist Howard E. Perry saw the opportunity.

He founded the Chisos Mining Company in 1903, and at its peak, about 2,000 people lived in the district, with a school, a church, a commissary and a movie theater running full time. Then mercury prices collapsed.

By 1947, every mine had shut down and nearly everyone left. The town sat empty for close to 30 years.

Crumbling adobe walls you can walk right through

Nobody charges you to explore the ruins. You can wander through what’s left of the Chisos Mining Company buildings, the old miners’ quarters, and the crumbling adobe walls that have been slowly returning to the desert for decades.

St. Agnes Catholic Church still stands among them.

The Perry Mansion, where the mine owner once lived, has been restored and now takes overnight guests. There’s no rope line, no guided tour required.

You just walk in and look around.

500 graves in one of Texas’s most photographed spots

The Terlingua Cemetery dates to 1902 and sits within the Terlingua Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.

More than 500 graves fill the grounds, many belonging to miners who died from accidents or mercury poisoning. Most markers are simple wooden crosses or mounds of desert stone.

What makes this place different from any other small-town cemetery is the personal touches: folk art, keepsakes left on the graves, and lawn chairs set beside certain plots so you can sit down and stay a while.

Candles, bonfires and music at the November cemetery gathering

Every Nov. 2, at sunset, the cemetery fills with people for Dia de los Muertos. Flowers and candles cover the graves, and large altars go up at the entrance.

Someone lights a bonfire, and the night stretches on with food, music and stories. The candlelight spreads across the whole cemetery under a sky with almost no light pollution blocking it.

The tradition runs deep here, rooted in the Mexican and Southwestern culture that shaped this corner of Texas long before the miners arrived.

The 1967 chili showdown that started an annual stampede

On Oct. 21, 1967, New York writer H. Allen Smith and Texas journalist Wick Fowler squared off in the desert to settle, once and for all, who actually knew how to make chili. The contest ended in a draw, but it started something.

Now two competing cookoffs run on the first weekend of November every year: the CASI Terlingua International Chili Championship and the Original Terlingua International Championship Chili Cookoff.

Around 10,000 people pour into this tiny community for the weekend.

Proceeds benefit local charities, including the ALS Association of Texas, in honor of Fowler, who died of ALS in 1972.

The Milky Way stretches horizon to horizon out here

In 2022, DarkSky International certified the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve, and at over nine million acres, it became the largest certified dark sky reserve in the world.

It’s also the first to cross an international border, covering parts of Texas and northern Mexico. Both Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park hold their own dark sky certifications within the reserve.

On a clear night, you can see the Milky Way without a telescope, and local outfitters run guided stargazing programs for visitors who want someone to explain what they’re looking at.

Paddle between 1,500-foot canyon walls on the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande runs along the southern edge of the region, and local outfitters based in Terlingua run trips year-round depending on water levels.

The most-requested stretch is Santa Elena Canyon, where cliff walls rise up to 1,500 feet straight out of the water. You’ll pass desert wildlife, ancient pictographs, and narrow side canyons branching off into the rock.

The river marks the US-Mexico border, so you can look left and see the United States, look right and see Mexico. Trips run from a half day to several days.

Big Bend National Park sits seven miles from your door

Seven miles east of Terlingua, Big Bend National Park covers more than 800,000 acres of desert, mountains and river canyon.

In the center of the park, the Chisos Mountains rise above 7,800 feet, the only mountain range contained entirely within a single US national park.

The Window Trail, Lost Mine Trail and Santa Elena Canyon Trail each give you a different angle on the terrain.

The Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive cuts through it all, with desert and canyon views stretching out on both sides of the road.

FM 170 is rated one of Texas’s most scenic roads

FM 170, called the Camino del Rio or the River Road, connects Terlingua to the community of Lajitas and continues west toward Presidio.

The road winds through high desert with the Rio Grande below you and the mountains of Mexico across the water.

It runs through Big Bend Ranch State Park, which covers 315,000 acres on its own and has trails for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding.

Driving it is a good use of a morning or afternoon even if you don’t stop anywhere, though you probably will.

The roofless theater that became the town’s living room

The building that is now the Starlight Theatre went up in the 1930s as a movie theater for the mining families.

After the mines closed, it was abandoned, and eventually the roof blew off, leaving the walls open to the sky. That’s how it got its name.

When artists and river guides started moving in during the 1960s and 1970s, the open-air ruin became a natural gathering spot. In 1991, the building was restored and reopened as a restaurant and live music venue.

Most nights, you can sit on the front porch and watch the sun drop over the desert.

Artists, river guides and desert people who picked this life

There are no chain stores in Terlingua, no traffic lights, no corporate anything.

The people here are artists, musicians, river guides and desert dwellers who looked at this remote stretch of far West Texas and decided it was exactly where they wanted to be.

Local galleries and small shops fill some of the restored mining-era buildings, and the Terlingua Trading Company serves as the town’s general store and main gathering point.

The landscape is what draws most visitors out here, but the people are what most of them remember.

Visit Terlingua in far West Texas

To get to Terlingua, head about 80 miles south of Alpine on TX-118 into southwestern Brewster County. The closest commercial airports are in Midland-Odessa, roughly four and a half hours north.

Fill up your tank in Alpine or Study Butte before you arrive, because there’s no gas station in Terlingua itself. Cell service is limited out here, and your phone may drift to Mountain Time near the border.

Big Bend National Park is about seven miles east, and Big Bend Ranch State Park is accessible heading west on FM 170.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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