Lajitas
| Lajitas | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Location in Texas
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Texas | ||
| County : | Brewster County | ||
| Coordinates : | 29 ° 16 ′ N , 103 ° 47 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Central ( UTC − 6 / −5 ) | ||
| Residents : | 75 (status: 2000) | ||
| Height : | 714 m | ||
| FIPS : | 48-40372 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 1339481 | ||
Lajitas is a place in Brewster County in the US state of Texas .
geography
Lajitas is located in west central Texas, in the southwest part of Brewster County, near the entrance to Big Bend National Park . The place about 400 meters above the Rio Grande controls the San Carlos ford of the former Comanche Trail over the river. Lajitas is located 153 km south of Alpine and 81 km east of Presidio . The closest locations are Study Butt (23 km) and Terlingua (30 km).
The climate is semi-arid , characterized by hot summers with average temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius from May to September and mild winters with average values of 11 degrees in December and January. The average annual rainfall is 272 mm.
history
Lajitas means “small, flat rock” in Spanish. The area was originally inhabited by Mexican Indian tribes, which were initially displaced by the Apaches and later by the Comanches .
The area was first explored by a US officer in 1852. It was not until the mercury discoveries near Terlingua in the 1880s and the ranches and farms in the Rio Grande Valley that were established around the same time that Anglo-Americans settled. Since Lajitas was the best ford to cross over the Rio Grande, the place slowly developed into an important trading center. At the turn of the century, HW McGuirk was the most influential farmer and entrepreneur in the area, opening and running a shop and saloon , building a church and school, which in 1912 had 50 students. In 1917 McGuirk sold his properties to Thomas V. Skaggs, who continued McGuirk's business and founded the Lajitas Wax Company. In 1916 the Texan-Mexican trade had come to a standstill due to the civil war of the Revolutionary General Pancho Villa , the American government stationed under General John J. Pershing cavalry units in Lajitas to protect the ford over the Rio Grande.
With the decline in mercury mining at Terlingua, the population fell considerably, to four residents by 1949. In 1976 the then-owner of the area, Rex Ivey Jr., sold part of the land to Houston entrepreneur Walter M. Mischer, who began renovating the place and turning it into a vacation area. By the mid-1980s, three motels, a hotel, a restaurant, a golf course, a swimming pool and the "Lajitas Museum" were built, in which finds from the Big Bend National Park were exhibited. In 1990 Lajitas had fifty residents and fifteen businesses. In the 1990s, the TV series "Streets of Laredo" with James Garner in the leading role was shot in the location. By 2000 the population rose to 75 inhabitants.
In 2000, Lajitas Recreation Park was sold for $ 4.2 million to an Austin entrepreneur who expanded the recreation area significantly. On December 8, 2007, the newspaper "San Antonio Express News" reported that the operating company of the recreation park had to declare bankruptcy with a debt burden of nearly $ 20 million.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Climate data from Lajitas
- ↑ Hilton, Evelyn: " Lajitas, Tx ". In: Handbook of Texas. Published by the Texas State Historical Association
- ↑ Texas Scapes