AYN FOUNDATION
(DAS MAXIMUM)
Sam Nail brings his bride Nena home to the ranch.
Nail children stayed with relatives or friends in
Marathon during the school year. In some years,
Sam and Nena rented a house in town for Mom
from which the children could go to school.
During the Great Depression, Julia had governess-
es, a couple of whom had graduate degrees but
could not find other employment.
Sam and Nena had two children, but Julia’s
brother, a few years older than she, died at age 9 of
measles. Though we can hardly imagine the death
of a child from measles, neither this loss of their
only son, nor the drought and the precipitous drop
in the cattle market during the Depression forced
Sam and Nena from their beloved ranch.
Neighbors were selling their land for it to become
a national park, so in the early 1940s, Sam and
Nena reluctantly sold too. They did not give up
ranching though, investing instead in other land,
and with their energy and commitment continued
to shape life and values in Brewster County.
Incidentally, the hydrogen gas-lighted lamps
were a very good investment. Daughter Julia
became a career librarian.
Today, the remains of the Sam Nail Ranch in
Big Bend National Park, at about the 3-mile mark-
er on Ross Maxwell Drive, give scant evidence of
the rich family life and thriving ranch of the 1920s
to 1940s. Unfortunately for those of us who would
be greatly inspired and informed had the ranch
been better preserved, the philosophy of the park
service in the 1940s required the destruction of
“modern habitation” to return the park’s moun-
tains and desert to its “natural state.”
Knowing what I’ve learned from Julia Nail
Moss, the ranch is no longer for me just a place to
see a variety of birds and wildlife at the small pool
at the base of the park-built steel windmill. It is a
monument to a Texas pioneer spirit.
ANDY WARHOL
“The Last Supper”
MARIA ZERRES
“September Eleven”
Brite Building 107-109 N Highland, Marfa
Open weekends noon to 5 p.m or by appointment.
Please call 432.729.3315 or go to
www.aynfoundation.com for more information.
located on HWY 118
/2&$6('(21(*"#(--.
4 mi. S. of Fort Davis
/(0,2(32(2)(5246(7$8,5
23(1(;<=>(?21<3$6
closed major holidays
&/25('(0$-24(+2/,'$:5
Open 9-5, Mon.-Sat.
9992&'4,224*
/EF:+,'(%?#*0'@A'
! B6
P.O.
Box 905, Fort Davis, TX 79734
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2012
21