Exploring the Big Bend Country

Exploring

THE BIG BEND COUNTRY

PETER KOCH and JUNE COOPER PRICE

University of Texas Press

Austin

Copyright © 2007 by the University of Texas Press

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First edition, 2007

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Library ebook ISBN: 978-0-292-79495-5

Individual ebook ISBN: 9780292794955

DOI: 10.7560/716544

Koch, Peter, 1904–1986.

Exploring the Big Bend Country / Peter Koch and June Cooper Price.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-292-71654-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-292-71654-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-292-71655-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-292-71655-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Natural history—Texas—Big Bend Region. 2. Big Bend Region (Tex.) I. Price, June Cooper, 1933– II. Title.

QH105.T4K63 2007

508.764’93—dc22

2006028298

This book was compiled for Peter Koch’s great-grandsons—Peter, David, Chris, Ben, Austin, Steven, Alistair, Matthew, and Cole—and his only great-granddaughter, Amanda.

You never had a chance to know him, or to hear the things he would want you to know about the Big Bend. Perhaps these words will bridge that gap.

It is also for all those who love the Big Bend Country. The explorers, the photographers, and those who see beyond the distant mountain ranges to a distant time, a distant place, and a distant frame of mind.

A good photograph is knowing where to stand.

Ansel Adams

1. The Big Bend Country

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1.  Santa Elena Canyon

2.  Mountain Trails

Betsy Koch Clark: Dad and I Hike in the Chisos

3.  Fort Davis and the Scenic Loop

4.  Smuggling and Other Career Paths

5.  Longhorns and Pronghorns

6.  The Search for Early Man

Betsy Koch Clark: Arranging the Snake

7.  Desert Diversity

Patricia Koch: My Hot Springs Flood Story

8.  Working with Warnock

Don Dhonau: The Single Blooming Flower

9.  Presidio County

10.  Wild and Scenic Río

11.  Silence of the Desert

Notes

Annotated Bibliography

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

Maps

1. The Big Bend Country

2. Big Bend National Park

3. Jeff Davis County

4. The Tornillo watershed

5. Presidio County

Figures

1.1. The Broken Blossom at Hot Springs

1.2. The Broken Blossom

1.3. Century plant stalks

1.4. Santa Elena Canyon

2.1. Layout of Basin facilities

2.2. Red Rocks at Blue Creek

2.3. South Rim view

2.4. Ancient burned stumps on Ward Mountain

2.5. View of the Basin from Ward Mountain

2.6. Horses mow weeds

2.7. Golden eagle flight sequence

2.8. Texas madrone tree in Green Gulch

2.9. Lost Mine Trail

2.10. Overlook on Lost Mine Trail

2.11. Rimrock looking toward Pulliam Mountain and upper Green Gulch

2.12. Hoarfrost on desert plants in the Chisos Mountain Basin

3.1. Terlingua Creek

3.2. Fort Davis before renovation

3.3. 10th Cavalry Association

3.4. Barry Scobee

3.5. Fort Davis

4.1. Terlingua ghost town

4.2. Perry house at Terlingua

4.3. Terlingua cemetery

4.4. Luna’s jacal shortly after the family moved away

4.5. Luna’s jacal

5.1. Ted Gray, former manager of the Kokernot o6 Ranch

6.1. Terlingua–Study Butte section of Big Bend

6.2. Cerro Castellán, also called Castolon Peak

6.3. Rock shelter

6.4. Sheltered cave

6.5. Boulders at Grapevine

6.6. Contrasting types of desert land

7.1. Rain dance enacted at San Vicente, 1953

7.2. Rain dance ceremony

7.3. Lizard pinned on a thorn by a shrike

7.4. Tornillo Creek

7.5. K-Bar

7.6. Mule Ears, southwestern flank of the Chisos Mountains

7.7. Strange natural sculptures; Old Rattlesnake Rock

7.8. Peter Koch self-portrait

7.9. Rounded concretions

7.10. Taj Mahal, half a mile from the Persimmon Gap entrance road

7.11. Cave on Tornillo Creek

7.12. Mesquite tree

7.13. Tornillo Creek

8.1. Pitaya plant

9.1. Pinto Canyon Road

9.2. Deteriorating early mission ruins

9.3. Dramatic formations

9.4. Capote Falls

9.5. Primitive bridge on the Río Conchos

9.6. Big Bend Country rocks

9.7. Penguin Rocks

9.8. The village of Shafter

10.1. Texas Explorer Club surveying Mariscal Canyon

10.2. Wax camp

10.3. Boquillas Canyon

10.4. Santa Elena Canyon

11.1. Big Bend–Davis Mountains, evidence of Stone Age hunters and gatherers

11.2 and 11.3. Trails near the McKinney Hills

11.4. Big Bend pelicipods

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FIRST, I WANT TO THANK MELLETA BELL and her staff at the Archives of the Big Bend, in Alpine, Texas. They have been custodians of the Peter Koch Photographic Collection since my father died in 1986. Their helpfulness and hospitality while I agonized over the selection of images for this book made every day a happy one. Michael Howard, digital imaging technologist, performed magic to repair many of the fifty-year-old photos I wanted to include. I know his work will meet the high expectations of the University of Texas Press.

At the University of Texas Press, I would like to thank Bill Bishel, Mary LaMotte, Kathy Bork, and others who contributed their time and talents to the production of this book.

I also want to thank my friend Mary Lynn Gilmour, who helped me page proof the final manuscript.

Friends and family contributing words and memories to this manuscript include Ross Burns, Betsy (Koch) Clark, Jimmie and Bill Cooper, Donald Dhonau, B. J. Gallego, Ted Gray, Celia and Rusty Hill, Patricia Koch, and Byron Smith. Their thoughts add the dimension I feel was needed to describe the unique life we lived in the early days of Big Bend National Park.

I also want to acknowledge the time Celia and Rusty Hill spent at their home in La Junta showing me how to build an ocotillo fence and picturesque garden walls. The unique creations consisting of discarded tires and aluminum cans neatly covered with concrete plaster. They are beautiful structures in tune with the desert landscape, in addition to being a delightful environmental solution that should be considered by all dwellers in the Southwest.

As always, I thank my husband, Marcus, for his patience and willingness to accompany me on our frequent trips to the Big Bend Country and for sharing his patience, expertise, and computer wisdom, which allowed this story to be written.

June Cooper Price

INTRODUCTION

PETER KOCH (pronounced coke) spent his lifetime climbing mountains. As soon as one summit was reached, he found another lofty goal to take its place. Well known in the 1950’s for his lectures and his extensive knowledge of natural history and photography, he was also a positive thinker and a public speaker gifted with confidence and authority.

Peter Koch would have described himself only as a self-taught photographer interested in nature. He was thoughtful, focused, and I thought he could do just about anything, but, then, I was his oldest daughter.

Dad was strict but never negative. He taught us respect not only for people but also for the natural world he found so important. He also taught by deed, not word, and filled our home with classical music and literature purchased on his lecture tours.

Dad and his family arrived in the United States from Romania when he was nine. His first challenge must have been learning English and the customs of America. As a Boy Scout, he was introduced to photography and discovered his lifelong passion. His curiosity about the wildlife of this country is evident in his first simple negatives of flowers, birds, and butterflies.

This Introduction should also include a few words about our family as it was in our life before Texas. Dad, my mother, Etta, and two younger sisters, Betsy and Patricia (Patti), completed my immediate family. We lived in the quiet rural community of Terrace Park, a few miles east of Cincinnati, Ohio. Dad provided a modest but comfortable living as chief photographer for the Cincinnati Times-Star. He was also associated with the Museum of Natural History and was occasionally an instructor of photography at the University of Cincinnati Evening College. However, even more important than his career was the enjoyment he found outdoors as a self-taught naturalist and a dedicated wildlife photographer.

I recall our comfortable, small white house in Terrace Park, surrounded by woods and fields. I enjoyed climbing the sycamore trees and playing house in the woods behind the garage. I was much too busy to be surprised the day Dad came home towing a twenty-three-foot house trailer behind his Chevrolet.

It was 1944 when Dad requested a leave of absence from the newspaper. My parents told me we were going to Arizona to see if the climate would cure my mother’s asthma. Betsy was seven; Patti was almost two. I was eleven and ready for adventure.

Photographers were excited at this time about the high quality of Kodak’s newly introduced color movie film. Dad was particularly interested in its potential to offer a more appealing presentation of his wildlife films. He called them documentaries—like those I’d seen when he took me to the Museum of Natural History on Saturday morning. He felt the quality of Kodak’s movie film would be a big factor in launching a new career. Dad wanted to finish his two natural history films, which were already in progress, and planned to do another of the Arizona desert while Mom regained her health.

It was early in September of 1944 when Dad hooked up the trailer Mother had named Porky the Road Hog. We crossed the Ohio River and headed for adventure.

We stopped first in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to enjoy the fall colors while my father finished filming Along Smoky Mountain Trails. We spent the Christmas holiday in Venice, Louisiana, as he worked on final footage of the Mississippi River delta for The Blue Goose Flies South.

While we were in the Smoky Mountains, National Park Service officials asked him if he had time to swing by newly established Big Bend National Park, in southwestern Texas, and take photographs for their files. Dad accepted the assignment, and in February we crossed the Mississippi and followed the sunny skies to Texas.

Both my parents were thrilled by the rugged beauty of the Big Bend and the mysterious Chisos Mountains rising high above the surrounding desert. They parked our trailer in the Basin beneath the piñon pines at the foot of Casa Grande and decided we might as well spend the summer. Mother recovered her health in the clean western air and soon joined us as we hiked the mountain trails and walked the windswept desert filled with intriguing wildlife, incredibly thorny plants, and ancient history.

Dad was excited about the photographic possibilities of the country, so Mother was not surprised when he decided to do a documentary of the Big Bend. His new film was conceived while he climbed the mountains, explored the canyons, and walked the silent deserts. His keen perception of the country and a curiosity about its people grew swiftly. Before long, his thoughts of leaving the Big Bend vanished like a desert whirlwind.

Just where is this incredibly magic place? Look at a map of Texas and you will see, in the southwestern part of the state, an area that dips down into Mexico. The Rio Grande and the Río Conchos get credit for carving this exceptional elbow as they flow to the Gulf of Mexico. The area within the encircling elbow is known as the Big Bend Country of Texas.

Dad was forty, just a pinch under six feet tall, with the tanned complexion of an outdoorsman. He had strong features, a lean body, and walked straight, tall, and effortlessly. I never heard him complain about his health or the weather, or brag about his accomplishments. His love for nature was passionate, and he quickly soaked up the area like a desert absorbs a slow rain.

He was as tough and tireless as a longhorn steer. His only weakness seemed to be a penchant for coffee cake at bedtime and a stack of graham crackers dunked in milk or coffee after a long hike.

Perhaps the snacks gave him the energy he needed in 1945–1946 to produce two full-length documentaries focused on the Big Bend. His lecture brochure says his oral presentation caught the spirit and tempo of the land and the easygoing confidence of frontier people. It also reflected his understanding of human nature, gained in contact with people during his years as a newspaper photographer.

My father’s approach to photography can best be understood from his words in Chapter 1, as he contemplates the meaning of what he is seeing and how to express these feelings on film. Just as an artist doesn’t discuss his artistic emotions with casual acquaintances, he declined to discuss his photography. Setting f-stops and shutter speeds came to him naturally. Depth of field was not a conscious decision. In the early days, if he was in doubt, he tried several variations, but it was not something he pondered. More important to him was finding a location to best portray his interpretation of each particular scene. In his words, What I saw and how I felt seemed much more important than how I did it.

He rarely included people, buildings, or other man-made objects in his photos unless they had relevance. He felt that these dated the photograph, and he wanted his work to be timeless.

In planning his documentaries, he began by visualizing the script and planning the story he wished to tell. Then he spent weeks, sometimes months, searching for locations and symbols to illustrate his words. He introduced a poetic narration, which was presented in a masterly way, according to some who saw his films. It was a new concept, much different from the incidental style used by other lecturers. They would show a bird and name it, then show a flower and name it, and so on. Dad wrote the script as a story, then filmed scenes to illustrate it.

His film Desert Gold was extremely popular. It opens with a fast-moving sequence of Spanish explorers crossing the continent in search of treasure. He then tells an Apache Indian legend that explains how their vast desert domain and the Chisos Mountains were created. It continues with the legendary tale of Chief Alsate, whose profile remains as a silhouette on Pulliam Ridge to be seen forever by anyone entering his Chisos Mountain hideaway from the north. The film closes with the romantic story of Pabla Blanca and her explanation of how giant whirlwinds form and why sand dunes are so beautiful at sunset.

My father’s agent, Harold R. Peat, booked Dad’s lecture tours throughout the northeastern and midwestern states. They were quite popular. Gregor Ziemer, educational director of New York City’s Town Hall, considered Desert Gold a travelogue film that has everything it should have—Poetry, Color, Symmetry, Symbolism, Drama.

Residents of Brewster County were also pleased with the film. Local photographer Glenn Burgess wrote an article for the Alpine Avalanche on May 2, 1952, that includes these words: One-fifth of the entire population of Alpine turned out Monday evening to discover what Peter Koch, nationally known travel lecturer, considered the value of Desert Gold, West of the Pecos. They found out … and also realized that Koch, as leading salesman for the Big Bend National Park, was indeed a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and [is] one of the best assets this colorful part of the Southwest has.

Meanwhile, Mother’s health continued to improve. To supplement the family income she took a secretarial position in 1946 with the National Park Service in Big Bend National Park, and our family moved from our trailer into a Park Service apartment in the renovated Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp complex in the Basin.

After six long, weary winters of living on the road showing his films, Dad decided to end his lecture tours and take on new challenges. It was 1951 when he applied for, and received, a concessions permit to open a camera shop in the Basin. He advised tourists on trips and camera techniques and sold film and inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras from our remodeled house trailer. The front room became an office; the kitchen he converted into a darkroom. He arranged for the publication of a tourist handbook, A Guide for the Big Bend,