Weekend Window to Big Bend National Park

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas, June 20, 2010 — -- Spread out over more than 800,000 acres in southwest Texas, Big Bend National Park is one of the largest and most remote national parks in the United States.

Located in the Chihuahuan desert, on the banks of the Rio Grande, Big Bend sits in the center of North America. It is a convergence point for animals and plants, which provides the park with an abundance of life within its borders. This diverse collection includes 1,295 species of plants, 450 different birds, 56 species of reptiles, 11 amphibian species and 75 different species of mammals.

"Big Bend National Park represents not just a frontier, not just a wilderness, [but] a wild and open place. Its remoteness is appealing in a lot of ways," said Tom Alex, Big Bend National Park resident historian. "This landscape changes as the sun moves across it each day, and from day to day, week to week, the place remains the same but looks different, and it has a spirit to it that speaks to me personally in some pretty profound ways.

"That's why it's become home to me, and I don't ever intend to leave," Alex said. "I would like for my bones and ashes to remain in this country."

Big Bend National Park was officially created in 1944, but evidence of human habitation of the Big Bend area dates back roughly 12,000 years. The Mescalero Apache and Comanche tribes were on the long list of those who came to the area.

"Big Bend has always been a frontier area, throughout history and pre history," Alex said. "People have been coming here from other parts of the country for millennia. The Indians came down from southern plains and New Mexico, followed by Hispanic settlers from Mexico in the late 1700s."

It wasn't until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 that the land to the north of the Rio Grande became U.S. territory.

"The Rio Grande is a focal point for the park," said David Elkowitz, a spokesman for Big Bend National Park. "In the earliest days, the 1800s when Europeans first came into this area, the Rio Grande was a means of access to the Big Bend region, which was a remote and mountainous and difficult region."