Recent news has me thinking about our very own Texas national treasure - the spectacular canyons, cliffs and ravines of Big Bend National Park cut through by the Rio Grande. I was mesmerized the first time I visited. Still am.
On a Big Bend family camping trip long ago, a 10-year-old kid I vaguely remember woke before everybody else, and in the cool of the morning started walking down a Chisos Basin trail toward the Window. I told no one.
I walked for half an hour, drawn to the rocky v-shaped formation framing the clear blue sky. When I realized the Window wasn't just ahead, I turned around and headed back, only to encounter a grim-faced park ranger and, following closely behind, Mom, near tears. She had no doubt a bear or a mountain lion had dragged her wayward son into the brush and devoured him for breakfast.
The three walked back to the campsite, the ranger lecturing firmly about what could happen to a kid who wandered off alone. All these years later, I can see my two flat-topped younger brothers sitting on a cot, smirking. This time, it was big brother in trouble, not them.
I had no idea that years earlier a young U.S. customs inspector named Everett E. Townsend had felt the same fascination. A cowboy, a Texas Ranger and a deputy U.S. marshal all before age 23, Townsend was tracking stolen mules when he ventured into the Chisos Mountains in August 1894. He said that what he discovered that day made him "see God as he had never seen Him before."
The young lawman vowed to find a way to preserve and protect the Big Bend area and nearly 40 years later he got his chance. In 1932, after three terms as Brewster County sheriff, the people of far West Texas elected him state representative. In Austin in the spring of 1933, the old cowboy managed to corral enough mulish lawmakers in the midst of the Depression to pass a bill establishing Texas Canyons State Park; amazingly, Gov. Miriam "Ma" Ferguson signed his bill into law. During a special session that year, he passed legislation changing the name to Big Bend State Park and expanding its holdings to more than 100,000 acres.
Townsend wasn't finished. He importuned Congressman R.E. Thomason of El Paso and U.S. Sen. Tom Connally of Texas to establish a national park. Thomason scoffed. He told Townsend he was damn sure nothing in West Texas was worth national park status.
A blizzard of letters, calls and telegrams from Townsend's friends changed his mind. "Tell Townsend for God's sake to call off his dogs, and I'll come and look at your old park," he told a mutual friend in Alpine.
The visit had its desired effect. On March 1, 1935, Connally and Thomason sponsored legislation establishing Big Bend National Park. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the bill into law, and the park became reality on Sept. 5, 1943. In a ceremony at then-Sul Ross State College, Townsend was lauded as "the father of Big Bend National Park."
The second-highest peak in the Chisos Mountains is called Townsend Point, in honor of the man's effort over decades to preserve one of the last wild places in America.
Recently, as I trudged along the rocky Window Trail – alone this time, too – clouds rolled in and thunder echoed off towering canyon walls. The last quarter-mile or so of the 5.5-mile-long trail follows a clear mountain stream. Clumps of yellow butterflies fluttered atop shallow pools. At the Window, the water poured out of its polished stone channel and dropped straight down to the desert floor 220 feet below. I hung back and tried to peer over the edge without getting too close.
Hiking back uphill to the Chisos Basin Campground, I indulged a passing fantasy, one that can never be. I wanted to call home to Waco and hear a familiar voice answer. "Hey, Mom," I'd say. "Remember when we went on that Big Bend trip and you had to send the ranger after me? Remember? Well, guess what..."
(Joe Holley, author of six books - mostly about Texas, has been a speechwriter for Gov. Ann Richards, a staff writer for The Washington Post and a Houston Chronicle editorial writer and columnist from 2012 until the present. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2017 and 2023 and a Pulitzer Prize winner in 2022. [email protected] )
