38 TERLINGUA ~ STUDY Butte ~ Lajitas

Historic Terlingua Cemetary Photo by Tim McKenna

is debate over the meaning of the name

Terlingua . Some insist it ’ s a permutation of tres linguas , meaning three languages , perhaps in reference to English , Spanish and Native languages spoken in the area .

Terlingua first referred to a small Mexican village on Terlingua Creek , three miles north of where it meets the Rio Grande . When quicksilver was discovered in the area in the 1880s , the Marfa and Mariposa Mining Company was quickly established and the name applied to its mining camps . By 1902 there were around 300 laborers living in the camps , mostly Mexican men . Over the next few years , the population swelled to 1,000 as miners brought their families and replaced their tents with stone houses . When the Marfa and Mariposa mine closed in 1910 and the Chisos Mining Company rose to prominence , the post office was moved 10 miles to the east , keeping the name Terlingua .

The first school in Terlingua was opened by Brewster County in 1907 , replaced in 1930 by the Perry School . Mine owner Howard Perry built his mansion on the west side of the town , where the Anglo population lived . Hispanic laborers lived on

Terlingua

the east side of the company store . Unlike most West Texas cemeteries , the Terlingua cemetery is not segregated .

By the 1920s , 40 percent of the mercury produced in the United States came from Terlingua . Production peaked during World War I but began to decline steadily throughout the 1930s . The Chisos Mining Company declared bankruptcy in 1942 , and by the end of World War II the mining settlement had become a ghost town .