Mountain Trail Region
Alpine
THE ABC’S OF ALPINE The city of Alpine unravels pleasantly across a wide, grassy valley along the foothills of the Davis Mountains. At around 4500 feet in elevation, this arid community stays…
Texas Mountain Trail Region Cities and Towns
Explore cities and towns in the Texas Mountain Trail Region
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Mountain Trail Region
Dell City
VALLEY OF HIDDEN WATERS The small farming and ranching community of Dell City lies in the shadow of Guadalupe Peak, at 8,750 feet the highest mountain in Texas. The peak, a feature…
Mountain Trail Region
El Paso
THE PASS A collision of geography and history created one of the most important settlements in the southwest along a northward passage from Mexico known as El Paso del Norte. Here, two…
Mountain Trail Region
Fort Bliss
Spread across 1,700 square miles in Texas and New Mexico, Fort Bliss is big...and so is its history. Beginning after the Mexican War in 1848, infantry and cavalry units guarded the region…
Mountain Trail Region
Fort Davis
MOUNTAIN TOWN By the time the year 1867 rolled around, the region around Fort Davis had seen plenty of action. The Fort itself, established in 1854 as part of a line of…
Mountain Trail Region
Fort Hancock
A simple stone marker bearing the words “Camp Rice” sits beside a field near this small cotton-farming community on the Rio Grande River. Across the river stands El Porvenir, Mexico and the…
Mountain Trail Region
Lajitas
LITTLE FLAT ROCK Lajitas, Spanish for “little flat rocks”, refers to the Boquillas flagstone found throughout this Texas Mountain Trail community, a tiny desert settlement overlooking the Rio Grande at the San…
Mountain Trail Region
Marathon
WEST TEXAS, BY WAY OF IMAGINING ANCIENT GREECE Marathon, a rural community occupying only a small piece of Brewster County projects a pretty big profile as gateway to one of the largest…
Mountain Trail Region
Marfa
A HIGHER PLATEAU Marfa’s transformation from railroad town to ranch community, serving as frontier cavalry outpost and World War II POW camp along the way, appears to follow a somewhat familiar trajectory…
Mountain Trail Region
Presidio
LA JUNTA DE LOS RIOS While taking a lunch-time drive along the main street of Presidio in search of some terrific Tex-Mex, keep in mind that this small border town in southern…
Mountain Trail Region
Ruidosa
Ruidosa hugs FM 170, the scenic River Road, near a historic bend of the Rio Grande. Comanche and Apache raids deterred a Mexican penal colony and Anglo settlement here throughout the 19th…
Mountain Trail Region
San Elizario
Each April historic San Elizario, not Plymouth Rock, celebrates America’s first Thanksgiving, The event commemorates a mass celebrated in 1598 by explorer Don Juan de Oñate when his expedition crossed the Rio…
Mountain Trail Region
Sierra Blanca
ADOBE WALLS IN A RAILROAD TOWN Hudspeth County boasts the only courthouse in Texas that’s constructed of adobe -- sun-dried mud bricks reinforced with straw. But if you expect to find a…
Mountain Trail Region
Socorro
The Mission Trail leads southeast from El Paso, tracing a royal road traveled by early Spanish colonists headed north to Santa Fe, now called the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National…
Mountain Trail Region
Study Butte
HUNDRED MILE VIEW The Texas Mountain Trail town of Study Butte, named for a butte that rises just northwest of and 230 feet above the Highway 118 and FM 170 intersection, bears…
Mountain Trail Region
Terlingua
Originally a small Mexican village on the banks of Terlingua Creek three miles above the creek’s confluence with the Rio Grande River, Terlingua changed rather quickly in the late 1800s due to…
Mountain Trail Region
Valentine
THE “LOVE STATION OF TEXAS,” 79854 The tiny, adobe-style post office is the heartbeat of this isolated ranching community in Jeff Davis County, where residents pick up mail and trade news and…
Mountain Trail Region
Van Horn
CROSSROADS Serving the tourism industry wasn’t always the principal pastime for residents of Van Horn. During a particularly rowdy period in its past, avoiding gun fights took precedent, accompanied by a bit…
Mountain Trail Region
Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
PRESERVING TIGUA CULTURE The Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which drove Spanish colonists and Christianized Indians from New Mexico, was a seminal event in Southwestern history. Tiguas from Isleta Pueblo near Albuquerque fled…