Terlingua
Terlingua, Brewster County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Famous Texas Ghost Town Terlingua With the mother-ore cinnabar strike in 1890, Terlingua became the world's quicksilver capital, yielding 40 percent of nation's need by 1922. Its name from Terlingua (Three Tongues) Creek nearby, was coined by Mexican herders. Comanche, Shawnees and Apaches lived on its upper reaches. Howard E. Perry's two-story mansion overlooked his Chisos Mining Company and townsite here, where 2,000 miners once used its jail, church, ice cream parlor, and theater. The mine flooded, mineral price fell and Terlingua died after World War II. (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the Chihuahuan Desert near the Big Bend, Terlingua boomed after an 1890 strike of cinnabar—the ore that yields mercury, or "quicksilver." For a few decades it ranked among the nation's leading sources of the metal, and Howard E. Perry's Chisos Mining Company drew some 2,000 workers to a company town complete with a hilltop mansion, jail, church, and theater. When the mines flooded and mercury prices fell after World War II, the town emptied, leaving the desert ruins that make it one of Texas's most famous ghost towns.
Why it matters
Terlingua distills the boom-and-bust arc of American mining, showing how a single mineral could conjure a whole town from the desert and abandon it just as fast.
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Related people
- · Howard E. Perry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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