50 Fun Facts About Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park takes its name from a great curve in which river?

For more than 1,000 miles the river forms the US–Mexico border; the park administers about 118 miles of it, including three deep limestone canyons.

Big Bend is the largest US protected area of which of North America's deserts?

The desert stretches deep into Mexico; south of the river the park is flanked by two Mexican protected areas.

The Chisos Mountains hold what distinction among US mountain ranges?

They cover just 40 square miles and are the southernmost range in the mainland United States, but not the whole country.

The whole park lies within which single Texas county?

At about 801,000 acres, the park alone is bigger than the state of Rhode Island; the county seat, Alpine, is 100 miles from park headquarters.

What is the highest point in the park?

It rises to about 7,830 feet, roughly 6,000 feet above the park's low point on the water, and is named for the chief surveyor of the 1852 boundary survey; from the basin below, the nearer Casa Grande looks taller.

Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, how far into the river does the park's territory extend?

The rest of the channel and everything south of it is Mexico, which is why the park says it faces 'unusual constraints' enforcing its rules on the water.

The river has cut three great canyons through the park. Which of these is NOT one of them?

Palo Duro is the huge canyon in the Texas Panhandle; the park's three cut through limestone uplifts with nearly vertical walls.

How many bird species have been recorded in the park?

That is more than any other US national park; the count sits alongside 1,200 plant species, 56 reptiles and 75 mammals.

Which small grey songbird breeds nowhere in the United States except the high canyons of the Chisos?

It arrives in mid-April, nests on the ground in oak-maple habitat around Boot Canyon and the South Rim, and heads back to southwestern Mexico by mid-September.

Roughly how many cougars actually live in the park, despite some 150 sightings reported each year?

Most animals hide by day; the park comes alive at night with coyotes, kangaroo rats, grey foxes and collared peccaries.

Which large mammal lives in the park's mountains, having wandered back in across the border?

They recolonised the Chisos from Mexico on their own; a plan to bring back a native canid was blocked by Texas in the late 1980s.

Which predator did the state of Texas refuse to let the park reintroduce in the late 1980s?

The argument was over whether there were enough deer and javelinas to feed a pack.

How many cactus species grow in the park?

Prickly pear, claretcup and pitaya are the showy ones; the park has 1,200 plant species overall and about 3,600 kinds of insect.

'Wax camps' along the river harvested which desert plant?

Euphorbia antisyphilitica yields a hard vegetable wax still used in cosmetics and chewing gum; harvesting it was a mainstay of the border economy.

The largest known pterosaur, found in the park's Javelina Formation in 1971, is called?

Graduate student Douglas Lawson found a three-foot wing bone in an arroyo; the wingspan is estimated at 33 to 36 feet, and it is named after the Aztec feathered serpent god.

The giant pterosaur's species name, northropi, honours what kind of person?

Jack Northrop built tailless flying-wing aircraft such as the YB-49 that resembled the animal; the discovery made the cover of Science in 1975.

Barnum Brown and R.T. Bird found neck vertebrae of which giant sauropod in the park in 1940?

They also turned up jawbones of the huge crocodylian Deinosuchus; the first fossil museum burned down in 1941, taking mammoth teeth and sabre-tooth remains with it.

The park's redesigned Fossil Discovery Exhibit opened in which year?

An earlier bone display had opened in 1957 with Hyracotherium, a horse ancestor, and the hippo-like Coryphodon; the real fossils were swapped for replicas in 1990.

Which people crossed the park on a named trail on their way to raid deep into Mexico until the mid-1800s?

The Comanche Trail passed near the hot springs on the river; the last great native war leader in the region was an Apache of Spanish ancestry named Alzate.

Which Spanish explorer's expedition passed near the Big Bend around 1535?

Later expeditions hunted for precious metals or sought converts; in the late 1700s Spain built a line of presidios along the river to guard New Spain's frontier.

Lieutenant Henry Flipper, who served near the Big Bend, was the first African American to do what?

Many soldiers guarding Trans-Pecos Texas were Black 'buffalo soldiers', a name apparently given to them by Native Americans.

A May 1916 raid on which settlement led Wilson to mobilise the Texas National Guard and station cavalry there?

The wax-camp community had a small garrison; the attack drew national headlines during the years of the Mexican Revolution.

What was the area called when lawmakers in Austin first protected it in 1933?

It was renamed Big Bend State Park later that year; Congress passed enabling legislation in 1935 and Texas deeded the land to the federal government.

In which year did Big Bend become a national park and open to visitors?

It became official on 12 June and opened on 1 July, in the middle of World War II.

Between 2009 and 2019, about how many people visited the park in an average year?

That makes it one of the least-visited parks in the lower 48; it is also among the largest and most remote.

Which metal was extracted from the cinnabar ore mined at Terlingua and Mariscal?

The Terlingua district produced most of America's quicksilver into the 1930s, nearly 150,000 flasks, before falling prices closed every mine by 1947. Native Americans reportedly used the red ore for pictographs.

The park's Mariscal Mine produced what share of US quicksilver output from 1900 to 1943?

Its 1,400 flasks each weighed 76 pounds; miners earned $1 to $1.50 for a ten-hour shift and suffered badly from the fumes.

Which Chicago businessman founded the Chisos Mining Company that built Terlingua?

He also set up the La Harmonia Company that ran the trading post at Castolon; his mine ran 23 miles of workings on 17 levels before going bust in 1942.

Which car maker with a huge ranch nearby co-founded Terlingua's 1967 chili cook-off?

More than 10,000 'chiliheads' now descend on the ghost town on the first Saturday of November for two rival championships.

Visitors cross the Rio Grande to which Mexican village, whose crossing reopened in 2013?

It was closed after the September 11 attacks and the village lost nearly half its people; it reopened as a Class B port of entry with limited weekly hours.

What did the mining company at Boquillas build across the river around 1900 to move ore?

Silver, lead and zinc were smelted by the river and hauled to El Paso; up to 4,000 people lived in the village until mining stopped in 1919.

Since June 2009, what does Homeland Security consider a river float trip in the park to be?

Paddlers need a passport or similar ID to 'return' to the United States, even though many never set foot on the Mexican bank.

What did J.O. Langford start beside the river in 1909, the area's first tourist attraction?

A malaria sufferer from Mississippi, he claimed the homestead sight unseen, took a 21-day cure in the 105 °F water and later added a store and motor court.

Which Spanish traveller visited the hot springs in 1747 and found Apaches farming there?

Petroglyphs at the site show it was used long before; the water carries traces of lithium, arsenic, uranium and tungsten.

The military compound built at Castolon to patrol the border was finished in 1920. What happened to it?

The border had gone quiet by then; the La Harmonia Company ran a store and cotton farm from the barracks until selling to the Park Service in 1961.

What destroyed much of the Castolon Historic District in May 2019?

With 110 °F heat and gusting winds, embers showered the district and gutted the barracks that housed the store and visitor center.

Which tier did the International Dark-Sky Association award the park's night sky in 2012?

The tier means 'free from all but the most minor impacts of light pollution'; Park Service measurements show Big Bend has the darkest skies in the contiguous United States.

The 30-mile Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive ends at which canyon?

It passes the Mule Ears and the Castolon Historic District on the way; four other paved roads link the entrances to park headquarters.

Where is the park's headquarters?

The 28-mile road from the north entrance ends there; from headquarters a 21-mile road drops 2,000 feet to the river.

The Outer Mountain Loop in the Chisos is a backpacking circuit of roughly what length?

It joins the South Rim loop, drops into the desert on the Dodson Trail and climbs back into the Chisos Basin.

The Chisos Mountains were built by volcanic activity during which epoch?

That puts them at 35 to 44 million years old; the range runs about 20 miles across the heart of the park.

The Chisos Basin Road climbs to about what elevation at Panther Pass?

It then drops into the basin, the trailhead for the Pinnacles Trail and the semi-technical scramble up the park's highest peak.

Some of the park's rim trails close from February to May to protect which nesting bird?

The Northeast and Southeast Rim trails and nearby backcountry sites shut for the breeding season.

A school district inside the park moved to its headquarters area around 1951. What is it called?

Its high-schoolers travel out to Big Bend High School in Terlingua.

The Cañón de Santa Elena protected area across the river from the park lies in which Mexican state?

Founded on 7 November 1994, the flora and fauna reserve covers the municipalities of Manuel Benavides and Ojinaga.

Roughly how many acres does Big Bend National Park cover?

That is about 1,252 square miles, all inside Brewster County, making it one of the largest yet least-visited parks in the lower 48.

Approximately how many miles of the Rio Grande does the park administer?

The river forms the international boundary for more than 1,000 miles in total; the park's stretch includes the Santa Elena, Mariscal and Boquillas canyons.

One theory says the name of the Chisos Mountains comes from a Native American word meaning what?

The rival theory derives it from the Castilian hechizos, meaning 'enchantment' — either way, a fitting name for a range ringed by desert.

Which Apache group began invading the Big Bend region around the start of the 18th century?

They displaced the Chisos people; a century later the Comanche were crossing the region on their raids into Mexico.

The Chisos Mountains cover roughly how many square miles?

The compact range is entirely inside the park and is partly forested, still recovering from logging and overgrazing before the 1930s.