History of Brewster County, Texas
And the Ghost Counties of the Trans Pecos
by J. Travis Roberts
O
ur Brewster County,
Texas, as it currently
exists, is an assembly of
land taken from the original
county of Bexar Land District,
which was created by the
Republic of Texas in 1836.
The western region of Texas
was ripe for settlement by fron-
tiersmen looking for land they
could call their own.
Migrants bound for the gold
rush in California in 1849 and
1850 were exposed to this large
expanse of land available for
their use. It was Lt. William
H.C. Whiting, who had been
assigned to map the unknown
lands north of the Rio Grande
and west of the Pecos River,
who named the region the “Big
Bend.” Now the term com-
monly identifies a special area
of West Texas, one that
includes Brewster County.
The need for safe routes and
the growing desire for military
protection from the Apache
and Comanche Indians forced
the government to establish
military posts close to known
watering points near which the
natives passed by or lived. Fort
Stockton, Fort Davis and other
sites in our region were
assigned military units to patrol
the established roads between
San Antonio and El Paso. Prior
to the Civil War, this region was
primarily used by travelers
crossing the Southwest. After
the war, the people’s desire to
own property, and the rail-
roads’ desire to extend their
lines, forced the state to open
up potential settlements.
Texas developed a program
through which the state would
give railroad companies 16 sec-
tions of land for each mile of
rail they promised to construct.
The railroads were to furnish
the land surveyors, who estab -
8
Photos courtesy Archives of the Big Bend, Bryan Wildenthal Memorial Library, Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas
Old Alpine after 1888. Note the courthouse on the left and the road to Fort Davis on the upper left. The railroad remains today where it
was then, although the stock pens are now gone.
lished maps of the state lands
and the unknown areas. The
mapping included odd section-
numbered land for the railroad
and even section numbers for
the state to retain. The rail-
roads then sold their holdings
to buyers to raise funds for their
projects, with the state also sell-
ing their sections.
Presidio and El Paso coun-
ties were carved out of the
Bexar County Land District on
Jan. 3, 1850. The designated El
Paso County was not organized
until March 7, 1871, with San
Elizario as the first county seat.
Between 1866 and 1873, the
county government was moved
to the community of Ysleta,
back to Elizario and then back
to Ysleta. The rail line reached
El Paso in 1881 from the west,
bringing settlers with it. El Paso
became the county seat in
1883.
The town of Presidio del
Norte was selected to be the
county seat for the only partial-
ly organized Presidio County in
1858. Full organization had to
wait until 1875, when Fort
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2012
Davis was made the seat of jus-
tice. Ten years later, after the
arrival of the Galveston,
Harrisburg and San Antonio,
or GH & SA, Railroad, Marfa,
a rail siding, became the coun-
ty seat. The ever-changing
population centers and the
political climate around the
new frontier resulted in a num-
ber of communities losing their
county-seat titles.
About 1849, the original
San Antonio to Chihuahua
road crossed the Pecos River,
continued west to Comanche
Springs at Fort Stockton,
thence west by Leon Springs
on to Leoncita, thence to
Burgess Springs at present-day
Alpine, then continued south-
west over Paisano Pass down
Alamito Creek to Fort Leaton
and across the Rio Grande into
Mexico. The Overland Stage
system was placed in service,
with the line passing through
Fort Stockton to Fort Davis and
points west.
With the extension of the
railroad east from El Paso, and
its arrival in what was then