Marathon
Marathon, Brewster County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Fort Pena Colorada, the last active fort in this area, on the old Comanche Trail, about 4 miles to the southwest was established in 1879. Marathon was founded in 1881. Named by an old sea captain, A.E. Shepard, for the Plain of Marathon, in Greece, of which the hills here reminded him. Cradle of West Texas cattle industry. Among the first noted ranchers here were Mayer M. Halff and brother, owners of the famous Circle Dot brand. Original gateway to the Big Bend National Park. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Marathon grew up in 1881 near Fort Peña Colorada, the last active fort along the old Comanche Trail, and took its name from a sea captain who thought the surrounding hills recalled Greece's Plain of Marathon. Ranchers like the Halff brothers, with their Circle Dot brand, made it a cradle of the West Texas cattle industry. For years it served as the original gateway to Big Bend.
Why it matters
Marathon shows how the retreat of the frontier fort and the rise of the great cattle ranches together opened the vast Big Bend country to settlement.
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Related people
- · A. E. Shepard
- · Mayer M. Halff
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Gage Hotel
Marathon, TX
The Gage Hotel was built in 1926–27 for Vermont-born cattleman Alfred S. Gage, whose Trans-Pecos ranching empire spanned more than 600 sections of West Texas land. Designed by the noted El Paso firm of Trost and Trost, the brick hotel served as Gage's Marathon residence and the headquarters for his local cattle and banking interests after he moved to San Antonio. It stands as a landmark of the great open-range ranching era that shaped the far West Texas frontier.
Ritchey Hotel, 1886
Alpine, TX
Built in 1886 of frame and adobe, the Ritchey Hotel rose beside the cattle-loading pens of the Southern Pacific Railway in the vast, remote Big Bend country. Here cowhands and ranchers who had driven stock in from scattered ranches could find a bed, a drink, and company while waiting to ship their cattle east by rail. It captures the moment when the railroad transformed West Texas ranching from an isolated frontier trade into part of a national market.
J. C. Bird
Alpine, TX
Julius Canselor Bird came to West Texas at eighteen as a Texas Ranger, guarding crews building the transcontinental railroad, then homesteaded ten sections along Calamity and Ash Creeks south of Alpine. With his wife America Walker he raised Durham cattle, helped found and finance the First Baptist Church, and later opened Alpine's first Buick dealership — a life that spanned the region's leap from frontier to automobile age.
William Edward Russell
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William Edward Russell left Kentucky as a young man and worked his way into the Big Bend, trading along the Chihuahua Trail and keeping a store at the Horsehead Crossing of the Pecos. He became one of far West Texas's leading figures—rancher, merchant, farmer, and silver miner—founding the settlement of Ruidosa, where he dug irrigation ditches and ran a mill, and holding county offices including sheriff. With his wife María Tomasita Rodriguez he raised a family straddling the Texas–Mexico borderland he helped develop.